A Generalized Equivalence Principle

TL;DR

This paper critiques the conventional understanding of gauge principles in field theories and introduces a new generalized equivalence principle linking inertial and field charges to provide a conceptual foundation for gauge theories.

Contribution

It challenges the traditional gauge principle's sufficiency and proposes a generalized equivalence principle to better justify the coupling of matter and interaction fields.

Findings

Critiques the conventional gauge principle's conceptual role.

Introduces a generalized equivalence principle relating inertial and field charges.

Provides a new conceptual foundation for gauge field theories.

Abstract

Gauge field theories may quite generally be defined as describing the coupling of a matter-field to an interaction-field, and they are suitably represented in the mathematical framework of fiber bundles. Their underlying principle is the so-called gauge principle, which is based on the idea of deriving the coupling structure of the fields by satisfying a postulate of local gauge covariance. The gauge principle is generally considered to be sufficient to define the full structure of gauge-field theories. This paper contains a critique of this usual point of view: firstly, by emphazising an gauge theoretic conventionalism which crucially restricts the conceptual role of the gauge principle and, secondly, by introducing a new generalized equivalence principle - the identity of inertial and field charge (as generalizations of inertial and gravitational mass) - in order to give a conceptual justification for combining the equations of motion of the matter-fields and the field equations of the interaction-fields.