Gauge invariance through gauge fixing.

Stud Hist Philos Sci

Department of History and Philosophy of Science/Department of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. Electronic address:

Published: December 2024

Phenomena in gauge theory are often described in the physics literature via a specific choice of gauge. In foundational and philosophical discussions this is often criticized as introducing gauge dependence, and contrasted against (often aspirational) "gauge-invariant" descriptions of the physics. I argue, largely in the context of scalar electrodynamics, that this is misguided, and that descriptions of a physical process within a specific gauge are in fact gauge-invariant descriptions. However, most of them are non-local descriptions of that physics, and I suggest that this ought to be the real objection to such descriptions. I explore the unitary gauge as the exception to this nonlocality and consider its strengths and limitations, as well as (more briefly) its extension beyond scalar electrodynamics.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.09.002DOI Listing

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