The physicists' conjecture on global Coulomb gauge fixing

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Let MM be the compact 3-manifold with boundary under consideration, let ρ:P→M\rho:P\to M be the principal gauge bundle, let C\mathcal{C} be its space of connections, and let G\mathcal{G} be the gauge group. For a connection ∇A∈C\nabla_A\in\mathcal{C}, write

HA={τ:τ is a k-valued 1-form and dA∗τ=0}H_A=\{\tau: \tau\text{ is a $\mathfrak{k}$-valued 1-form and }d_A^*\tau=0\}

and

SA={A+τ:τ∈HA}⊆C.\mathcal{S}_A=\{A+\tau:\tau\in H_A\}\subseteq\mathcal{C}.

Physicists' conjecture. Fix a connection ∇A∈C\nabla_A\in\mathcal{C}. Then for every ∇A′∈C\nabla_{A'}\in\mathcal{C}, there exists a unique g∈Gg\in\mathcal{G} such that ∇A′⋅g∈SA\nabla_{A'}\cdot g\in\mathcal{S}_A.

This asserts that every gauge orbit meets the Coulomb slice based at AA exactly once, providing the global section physicists seek in order to remove the Gribov ambiguity and define the functional integral over the quotient. The supplied excerpt gives no evidence that the conjecture has been proved or disproved.

References

Primary source

William E. Gryc, “On the Holonomy of the Coulomb Connection over 3-manifolds with Boundary”, arXiv:math/0608507 (2006).

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