Gauge (in)dependence and background field formalism

It is shown that the gauge invariance and gauge dependence properties of effective action for Yang-Mills theories should be considered as two independent issues in the background field formalism. Application of this formalism to formulate the functional renormalization group approach is discussed. It is proven that there is a possibility to construct the corresponding average effective action invariant under the gauge transformations of background vector field. Nevertheless, being gauge invariant this action remains gauge dependent on-shell.Comment: 14 pages, v2: typos corrected, v3:minor correction in Eqs. (2.24), v4: a reference added, misprints corrected, accepted for publication in PL

Effective Action of Composite Fields for General Gauge Theories in BLT-Covariant Formalism

The gauge dependence of the effective action of composite fields for general gauge theories in the framework of the quantization method by Batalin, Lavrov and Tyutin is studied. The corresponding Ward identities are obtained. The variation of composite fields effective action is found in terms of new set of operators depending on composite field. The theorem of the on-shell gauge fixing independence for the effective action of composite fields in such formalism is proved. brief discussion of gravitational-vector induced interaction for Maxwell theory with composite fields is given.Comment: Typos corrected. Latex fil

Field-dependent BRST transformations in Yang-Mills theory

We find an explicit form for the Jacobian of arbitrary field-dependent BRST transformations in Yang-Mills theory. For the functional-integral representation of the (gauge-fixed) Yang-Mills vacuum functional, such transformations merely amount to a precise change in the gauge-fixing functional. This proves the independence of the vacuum functional under any field-dependent BRST transformation. We also give a formula for the transformation parameter functional which generates a prescribed change of gauge and evaluate it for connecting two arbitrary R_xi gauges.Comment: 1+7 pages; v2: ref.[10] replaced by new one, explicit solution (4.6) added, published versio

Gribov horizon beyond the Landau gauge

Gribov and Zwanziger proposed a modification of Yang-Mills theory in order to cure the Gribov copy problem. We employ field-dependent BRST transformations to generalize the Gribov-Zwanziger model from the Landau gauge to general R_xi gauges. The Gribov horizon functional is presented in explicit form, in both the non-local and local variants. Finally, we show how to reach any given gauge from the Landau one.Comment: 1+6 pages; v2: one ref. and 3 clarifications added, published versio