Homotopy and duality in non-Abelian lattice gauge theory

DOI10.1016/J.NUCLPHYSB.2004.01.025zbMATH Open1107.81317arXivhep-th/0308100OpenAlexW2015450957MaRDI QIDQ874039FDOQ874039

Publication date: 4 April 2007

Published in: Nuclear Physics B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We propose an approach of lattice gauge theory based on a homotopic interpretation of its degrees of freedom. The basic idea is to dress the plaquettes of the lattice to view them as elementary homotopies between nearby paths. Instead of using a unique

G

-valued field to discretize the connection 1-form,

A

, we use an

A G

-valued field

U

on the edges, which plays the role of the 1-form

a d_{A}

, and a

G

-valued field

V

on the plaquettes, which corresponds to the Faraday tensor,

F

. The 1-connection,

U

, and the 2-connection,

V

, are then supposed to have a 2-curvature which vanishes. This constraint determines

V

as a function of

U

up to a phase in

Z (G)

, the center of

G

. The 3-curvature around a cube is then Abelian and is interpreted as the magnetic charge contained inside this cube. Promoting the plaquettes to elementary homotopies induces a chiral splitting of their usual Boltzmann weight,

, defined with the Wilson action. We compute the Fourier transform,