Gauge invariant extremization on the lattice

Recently, a method was proposed and tested to find saddle points of the action in simulations of non-abelian lattice gauge theory. The idea, called `extremization', is to minimize $\int(\dl S/\dl A_\mu)^2$. The method was implemented in an explicitly gauge variant way, however, and gauge dependence showed up in the results. Here we show how extremization can be formulated in a way that preserves gauge invariance on the lattice. The method applies to any gauge group and any lattice action. The procedure is worked out in detail for the standard plaquette action with gauge groups U(1) and SU(N).