Reduction of homogeneous Yang-Mills fields (Q583632)

This paper deals with space homogeneous Yang-Mills equations in an \((n+1)\)-dimensional Minkowski space-time which are essentially ordinary differential equations. The gauge invariance of these equations sets up restrictions on the initial conditions. This set of initial data on which the symmetry group of the equation acts is analyzed. There are various reductions of this set which are shown to agree. Moreover for the gauge groups SU(2) or SO(3) it is shown that this system is equivalent to that of n interacting particles moving in \(R^ 3\) with zero total angular momentum. The particular cases \(n=1\), \(n=2\) are discussed in detail.