Weyl connection, non-Abelian gauge field, and torsion (Q1921863)

Soon after the creation of the general theory of relativity, Hermann Weyl attempted to unify gravity and electromagnetism. Since invariance with respect to the group of general coordinate transformations (the diffeomorphism group in modern terminology) determines the laws of gravitational interactions, Weyl had the idea that the scale invariance that he introduced should correspond to electromagnetism. Weyl's theory was not developed, since after the creation of quantum mechanics it was generally accepted that local phase invariance, in contrast to the geometrical invariance considered by Weyl, is associated with the electromagnetic field. However, Weyl's idea led to what we today call gauge theory. Moreover, in 1921 Weyl discovered a law of parallel transport, which he called kongruente Verpflanzung and, as will be shown, was thus the first who introduced a non-Abelian gauge field. In this note, we attempt to show that congruent transport is of undoubted interest both from the point of view of a natural unification of spacetime and gauge symmetries and in connection with the problem of the physical interpretation of Riemann-Cartan geometry.