A groupoid approach to spaces of generalized connections (Q1602434)

It is known that the quantum completion \(\overline{{\mathcal{A}}}\) of the space of connections in a manifold can be seen as the set of all morphisms from the groupoid of the edges of the manifold to the (compact) gauge group. This algebraic construction generalizes an analogous description of the gauge-invariant quantum configuration space \(\overline{{\mathcal{A}}/{\mathcal{G}}}\) of Ashtekar and Isham, clarifying the relation between the two spaces. In this paper, the author presents a description of the groupoid approach which brings the gauge-invariant degrees of freedom to the foreground, thus making the action of the gauge group more transparent.