Why gauge?

DOI10.1007/S10701-013-9768-7zbMATH Open1291.81016arXiv1308.5599OpenAlexW3037145107MaRDI QIDQ2015111FDOQ2015111

Carlo Rovelli

Publication date: 18 June 2014

Published in: Foundations of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The world appears to be well described by gauge theories; why? I suggest that gauge is more than mathematical redundancy. Gauge-dependent quantities can not be predicted, but there is a sense in which they can be measured. They describe "handles" though which systems couple: they represent real relational structures to which the experimentalist has access in measurement by supplying one of the relata in the measurement procedure itself. This observation leads to a physical interpretation for the ubiquity of gauge: it is a consequence of a relational structure of physical quantities.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1308.5599

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zbMATH Keywords

symmetrygauge

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) Yang-Mills and other gauge theories in mechanics of particles and systems (70S15) General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Symmetries and conservation laws in mechanics of particles and systems (70S10)

Cites Work

• Generalized Hamiltonian Dynamics
• What is the simplest quantum field theory?
• Invariant Theoretical Interpretation of Interaction
• Quantum Gravity
• Conservation of Isotopic Spin and Isotopic Gauge Invariance
• A ``general boundary formulation for quantum mechanics and quantum gravity

Cited In (27)

• To gauge theory from a minimum of a priori structure
• Deformed Heisenberg charges in three-dimensional gravity
• On representational capacities, with an application to general relativity
• To gauge or not to gauge?
• The observer's ghost: notes on a field space connection
• Eliminativism and the QCD \(\theta_{\mathrm{YM}}\)-term: what gauge transformations cannot do
• Gravitational energy in Newtonian gravity: a response to Dewar and weatherall
• The dressing field method for diffeomorphisms: a relational framework
• Gauging the boundary in field-space
• Mathematical Analogies in Physics: The Curious Case of Gauge Symmetries
• Statistical mechanics of covariant systems with multi-fingered time
• A unified geometric framework for boundary charges and dressings: non-abelian theory and matter
• Gravitational edge modes, coadjoint orbits, and hydrodynamics
• Edge modes as reference frames and boundary actions from post-selection
• Internal quantum reference frames for finite Abelian groups
• Can there be a process without time? Processualism within timeless physics
• A note on Rovelli's `Why Gauge?'
• Edge modes as dynamical frames: charges from post-selection in generally covariant theories
• Note on the group of vertical diffeomorphisms of a principal bundle \& its relation to the Frölicher-Nijenhuis bracket
• Corners of gravity: the case of gravity As a constrained BF theory
• Relativity and equivalence in Hilbert space: a principle-theory approach to the Aharonov-Bohm effect
• \(\Psi\)-epistemic quantum cosmology?
• What should be the ontology for the standard model?
• Weyls search for a difference between `physical' and `mathematical' automorphisms
• Twistor representation of Jackiw –Teitelboim gravity
• Bubble networks: framed discrete geometry for quantum gravity
• Bundle geometry of the connection space, covariant Hamiltonian formalism, the problem of boundaries in gauge theories, and the dressing field method

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