6533b856fe1ef96bd12b2586
RESEARCH PRODUCT
QUANTUM YANG-MILLS THEORY ON ARBITRARY SURFACES
George ThompsonMatthias Blausubject
PhysicsNuclear and High Energy PhysicsPure mathematicsWilson loopAstronomy and AstrophysicsYang–Mills theoryPartition function (mathematics)Contractible spaceAtomic and Molecular Physics and OpticsGenus (mathematics)Quantum mechanicsPath integral formulationGauge theoryQuantum field theorydescription
We study quantum Maxwell and Yang-Mills theory on orientable two-dimensional surfaces with an arbitrary number of handles and boundaries. Using path integral methods we derive general and explicit expressions for the partition function and expectation values of contractible and noncontractible Wilson loops on closed surfaces of any genus, as well as for the kernels on manifolds with handles and boundaries. In the Abelian case we also compute correlation functions of intersecting and self-intersecting loops on closed surfaces, and discuss the role of large gauge transformations and topologically nontrivial bundles.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992-06-30 | International Journal of Modern Physics A |