Global Aspects of Quantizing Yang-Mills Theory

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in formulating a global path integral for Yang-Mills theory, addressing gauge fixing issues and the Gribov problem through a patchwise summation approach.

Contribution

It introduces a global extension of the Yang-Mills path integral that is independent of local gauge fixing choices, based on a generalized stochastic quantization scheme.

Findings

Global path integral is independent of patch choices

Path integral formulation on gauge orbit space is discussed

Addresses Gribov problem in gauge fixing

Abstract

We review recent results on the derivation of a global path integral density for Yang-Mills theory. Based on a generalization of the stochastic quantization scheme and its geometrical interpretation we first recall how locally a modified Faddeev-Popov path integral density for the quantization of Yang-Mills theory can be derived, the modification consisting in the presence of specific finite contributions of the pure gauge degrees of freedom. Due to the Gribov problem the gauge fixing can be defined only locally and the whole space of gauge potentials has to be partitioned into patches. We discuss a global extension of the path integral by summing over all patches, which can be proven to be manifestly independent of the specific local choices of patches and gauge fixing conditions, respectively. In addition to the formulation on the whole space of gauge potentials we discuss the corresponding path integral on the gauge orbit space.