Unfolded Formulation of 4d Yang-Mills Theory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new unfolded formulation of 4d Yang-Mills theory that is manifestly gauge and diffeomorphism invariant, extending methods from higher-spin gravity to gauge theories.

Contribution

It presents the first unfolded, first-order formulation of 4d Yang-Mills theory, adapting techniques from higher-spin gravity to gauge theories.

Findings

Provides a manifestly gauge-invariant, diffeomorphism-invariant formulation.

Extends the unfolding method to non-scalar gauge theories.

Discusses properties of unfolding maps in the new formulation.

Abstract

In this note, we present a novel formulation of 4d pure Yang-Mills theory within the unfolded framework of Vasiliev higher-spin gravity. This formulation is first-order and exhibits manifest diffeomorphism and gauge invariance. Our approach builds upon a recently proposed unfolding method, previously applied to scalar electrodynamics. Additionally, we discuss the features of various unfolding maps defined by the unfolded equations.