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Asymptotic Symmetries of Yang-Mills Theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-06-16 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

Asymptotic symmetries at future null infinity (I+) of Minkowski space for electrodynamics with massless charged fields, as well as non-Abelian gauge theories with gauge group G, are considered at the semiclassical level. The possibility of charge/color flux through I+ suggests the symmetry group is infinite-dimensional. It is conjectured that the symmetries include a G Kac-Moody symmetry whose generators are "large" gauge transformations which approach locally holomorphic functions on the conformal two-sphere at I+ and are invariant under null translations. The Kac-Moody currents are constructed from the gauge field at the future boundary of I+. The current Ward identities include Weinberg's soft photon theorem and its colored extension.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1308.0589,
  title  = {Asymptotic Symmetries of Yang-Mills Theory},
  author = {Andrew Strominger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1308.0589},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

19 pages, 1 figure. Revised version contains minor edits and additional references