Gauge Invariant Constructions in Yang - Mills

Understanding physical configurations and how these can emerge from the underlying gauge theory is a fundamental problem in modern particle physics. This thesis investigates the study of these configurations primarily focussing on the need for gauge invariance in constructing the gauge invariant fields for any physical theory. We consider Wu’s approach to gauge invariance by identifying the gauge symmetry preserving conditions in quantum electrodynamics and demonstrate how Wu’s conditions for one-loop order calculations (under various regularisation schemes) leads to the maintenance of gauge invariance. The need for gauge invariance is stressed and the consequences discussed in terms of the Ward identities for which various examples and proofs are presented in this thesis. We next consider Zwanziger’s description of a mass term in Yang-Mills theory, where an expansion is introduced in terms of the quadratic and cubic powers of the field strength. Although Zwanziger introduced this expansion there is, however, no derivation or discussion about how it arises and how it may be extended to higher orders. We show how Zwanziger’s expansion in terms of the inverse covariant Laplacian can be derived and extended to higher orders. An explicit derivation is presented, for the first time, for the next to next to leading order term. The role of dressings and their factorisation lies at the heart of this analysis.