Why Gauge?

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.

8 pages (references added)

References in corpus (6)

• Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC
• Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of products and scientific results
• A "general boundary" formulation for quantum mechanics and quantum gravity
• Are the spectra of geometrical operators in Loop Quantum Gravity really discrete?
• Planck 2015 results. I. Overview of products and scientific results

Cited by in corpus (55)

• The angular momentum controversy: What's it all about and does it matter?
• A change of perspective: switching quantum reference frames via a perspective-neutral framework
• Gravitational Edge Modes, Coadjoint Orbits, and Hydrodynamics
• Understanding Gauge
• Beables/Observables in Classical and Quantum Gravity
• The loop gravity string
• A unified geometric framework for boundary charges and dressings: non-Abelian theory and matter
• How to switch between relational quantum clocks
• The Observer's Ghost: a field-space connection-form and its application to gauge theories and general relativity
• Switching quantum reference frames in the N-body problem and the absence of global relational perspectives
• Edge modes as reference frames and boundary actions from post-selection
• Quantum reference frame transformations as symmetries and the paradox of the third particle
• Gauging the Kitaev chain
• Gauge Symmetries, Symmetry Breaking, and Gauge-Invariant Approaches
• Construction of quantum Dirac observables and the emergence of WKB time
• Holism as the significance of gauge symmetries
• Gauging the Boundary in Field-space
• Edge modes as dynamical frames: charges from post-selection in generally covariant theories
• Electromagnetic duality and central charge
• Schrodinger Evolution for the Universe: Reparametrization
• Symmetries of the Black Hole Interior and Singularity Regularization
• Internal quantum reference frames for finite Abelian groups
• Bundle geometry of the connection space, covariant Hamiltonian formalism, the problem of boundaries in gauge theories, and the dressing field method
• Bubble Networks: Framed Discrete Geometry for Quantum Gravity
• Origin of the quantum group symmetry in 3d quantum gravity
• New action for simplicial gravity in four dimensions
• 2+1D Loop Quantum Gravity on the Edge
• Statistical mechanics of reparametrization-invariant systems. It takes three to tango
• Symplectic reduction of Yang-Mills theory with boundaries: from superselection sectors to edge modes, and back
• Geometric relational framework for general-relativistic gauge field theories
• Dressing vs. Fixing: On How to Extract and Interpret Gauge-Invariant Content
• Angular momentum without rotation: turbocharging relationalism
• Soft edges: the many links between soft and edge modes
• On the Meaning of Local Symmetries: Epistemic-Ontological Dialectics
• The dressing field method for diffeomorphisms: a relational framework
• Metriplectic geometry for gravitational subsystems
• Impact of generalized holonomy corrections on the cosmological primordial power spectra
• Dual 2+1D Loop Quantum Gravity on the Edge
• Twistor representation of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity
• Deformed Heisenberg charges in three-dimensional gravity
• Relativity and Equivalence in Hilbert Space: A Principle-Theory Approach to the Aharonov-Bohm Effect
• Regarding the `Hole Argument' and the `Problem of Time'
• $\Psi$-Epistemic Quantum Cosmology?
• Curvature from multipartite entanglement in quantum gravity states
• Is spacetime curved? Assessing the underdetermination of general relativity and teleparallel gravity
• Corners of gravity: the case of gravity as a constrained BF theory
• Note on the group of vertical diffeomorphisms of a principal bundle, and its relation to the Frölicher-Nijenhuis bracket
• Statistical mechanics of covariant systems with multi-fingered time
• A spacetime-covariant approach to inertial and accelerated quantum clocks in first-quantization
• What can we do in a symmetry-constrained perspective? The importance of the total charge's status in quantum reference frame frameworks
• What should be the ontology for the Standard Model?
• Toward Manifest Relationality in Transformers via Symmetry Reduction
• Hidden Symmetries in Gravity : Black holes and other minisuperspaces
• Edge modes, extended TQFT, and measurement based quantum computation
• Mechanics as a general-relativistic gauge field theory, and Relational Quantization