Understanding Gauge

Abstract

I consider two usages of the expression "gauge theory". On one, a gauge theory is a theory with excess structure; on the other, a gauge theory is any theory appropriately related to classical electromagnetism. I make precise one sense in which one formulation of electromagnetism, the paradigmatic gauge theory on both usages, may be understood to have excess structure, and then argue that gauge theories on the second usage, including Yang-Mills theory and general relativity, do not generally have excess structure in this sense.

Published version with erratum. 14 pages + 1 page erratum. Paper given as part of a symposium on Formal Methods in Philosophy of Science at PSA 2014

References in corpus (2)

• Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections
• A Categorical Equivalence between Generalized Holonomy Maps on a Connected Manifold and Principal Connections on Bundles over that Manifold

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