Related papers: Groupthink and the blunder of the gauges
The fallacies associated with the gauge concept in electromagnetism are illustrated. A clearer and more valid formulation of the basics of classical electromagnetism is provided by recognizing existing physical constraints as well as the…
Gauge theory, which is the basis of all particle physics, is itself based on a few fundamental concepts, the consequences of which are often as beautiful as they are deep. In this short lecture course I shall try to give an introduction to…
The concept of gauge invariance in classical electrodynamics assumes tacitly that Maxwell's equations have unique solutions. By calculating the electromagnetic field of a moving particle both in Lorenz and in Coulomb gauge and directly from…
In an earlier paper we provided an alternative to the standard gauge concept for deriving the classical electromagnetic wave equations. This alternative involves recognition of two previously overlooked basic equations and represents a…
Group theory is used in many textbooks of contemporary physics. However, electromagnetic community often considers group theory as an "exotic" tool. Graduate and postgraduate textbooks on electromagnetics and electrodynamics usually do not…
I consider two usages of the expression "gauge theory". On one, a gauge theory is a theory with excess structure; on the other, a gauge theory is any theory appropriately related to classical electromagnetism. I make precise one sense in…
Gauge theory underpins the quantum field theories of the standard model, and in a previous paper was shown via a geometric approach to describe classical electromagnetism in a form which approximates QED. Here we formalize and generalize…
This thesis is about conceptual aspects of gauge theories. Gauge theories lie at the heart of modern physics: in particular, they constitute the standard model of particle physics. At its simplest, the idea of gauge is that nature is best…
In this comment it is argued that the argument for a unique determination of the electromagnetic potentials in classical electrodynamics in [1] is flawed. To the contrary the "gauge freedom" of the electromagnetic potentials has proven as…
Gauge symmetries are often highlighted as a fundamental cornerstone of modern physics. But at the same time, it is commonly emphasized that gauge symmetries are not a fundamental feature of nature but merely redundancies in our description.…
In this review, the fundamental concepts of group theory and representation theory are introduced. Special emphasis is placed on the unitary irreducible representations of the $SU(N)$ Lie group, the Poincare group, Little Group, discrete…
Phenomena in gauge theory are often described in the physics literature via a specific choice of gauge. In foundational and philosophical discussions this is often criticized as introducing gauge dependence, and contrasted against (often…
The scope of this review is to give a pedagogical introduction to some new calculations and methods developed by the author in the context of quantum groups and their applications. The review is self- contained and serves as a "first aid…
In this paper, I consider a recent controversy about whether first-class constraints generate gauge transformations in the case of electromagnetism. I argue that there is a notion of gauge transformation, the extended notion, which is…
The infinite group of deformed diffeomorphisms of the spacetime continuum is put into the basis of the gauge theory of gravity. This gives rise to some new ways for unification of gravity with other gauge interactions.
"Physical theories of fundamental significance tend to be gauge theories. These are theories in which the physical system being dealt with is described by more variables than there are physically independent degree of freedom. The…
Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space…
The paper investigates the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetries in gauge theories from a philosophical angle, taking into account the fact that the notion of a spontaneously broken local gauge symmetry, though widely employed in…
In this talk, we briefly review the basic concepts of anomalous gauge theories. It has been known for some time how theories with local anomalies can be handled. Recently it has been pointed out that global anomalies, which obstruct the…
In these lectures I review the status of gravity from the point of view of the gauge principle and renormalization, the main tools in the toolbox of theoretical particle physics. In the first lecture I start from the old question "in what…