- #1
henry_m
- 160
- 2
Hi, first post here so be nice!
I'd be interested to hear any input on a fairly minor point that I've come across with gauge fixing. Specifically, for a [tex]U(N)[/tex] gauge group, how to show it is possible to fix [tex]A_\mu=0[/tex] for some coordinate (the specific example I'm using is lightcone gauge in (1+1)-D, [tex]A_{-}=0[/tex]).
So we have a gauge transformation [tex]A_\mu\to U A_\mu U^\dagger + i U\partial_\mu U^\dagger [/tex] for unitary [tex]U[/tex]. Most of the coordinate are just spectators, so we can supress them, and it eventually reduces to solving a matrix ODE:
[tex]\dot{U}(t)=iU(t)A(t)[/tex]
Here [tex]t[/tex] represents the coordinate whose component of the gauge field we're fixing to zero, and [tex]A(t)[/tex] is that component. [tex]A[/tex] is Hermitian. At first I thought [tex]U(t)=\exp\left[i\int^t A\right][/tex] would do the trick, but that's no good since [tex]A[/tex] won't necessarily commute with its derivative. It's plausible that a solution exisits, but I haven't been able to find it. So:
1. Does someone know how to solve it explicitly?
2. The next best thing, can we prove a solution for unitary [tex]U[/tex] exists? Is there a uniqueness theorem to invoke? I suspect the main thing here is showing that we can take [tex]U[/tex] to be unitary.
Thanks,
Henry
I'd be interested to hear any input on a fairly minor point that I've come across with gauge fixing. Specifically, for a [tex]U(N)[/tex] gauge group, how to show it is possible to fix [tex]A_\mu=0[/tex] for some coordinate (the specific example I'm using is lightcone gauge in (1+1)-D, [tex]A_{-}=0[/tex]).
So we have a gauge transformation [tex]A_\mu\to U A_\mu U^\dagger + i U\partial_\mu U^\dagger [/tex] for unitary [tex]U[/tex]. Most of the coordinate are just spectators, so we can supress them, and it eventually reduces to solving a matrix ODE:
[tex]\dot{U}(t)=iU(t)A(t)[/tex]
Here [tex]t[/tex] represents the coordinate whose component of the gauge field we're fixing to zero, and [tex]A(t)[/tex] is that component. [tex]A[/tex] is Hermitian. At first I thought [tex]U(t)=\exp\left[i\int^t A\right][/tex] would do the trick, but that's no good since [tex]A[/tex] won't necessarily commute with its derivative. It's plausible that a solution exisits, but I haven't been able to find it. So:
1. Does someone know how to solve it explicitly?
2. The next best thing, can we prove a solution for unitary [tex]U[/tex] exists? Is there a uniqueness theorem to invoke? I suspect the main thing here is showing that we can take [tex]U[/tex] to be unitary.
Thanks,
Henry