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Summarized in a single sentence, this paper at https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12111887 studies in great mathematical and physical detail what happens to Maxwell’s electrodynamics, and U(1) quantum electrodynamics, in the situation where Maxwell’s abelian gauge fields ${{A}^{\mu }}$ become non-commuting (nonabelian) gauge fields ${{G}^{\mu }}={{\tau }_{i}}G_{i}^{\mu }$ covariantly transforming under the compact simple Yang-Mills gauge group SU(N) with NxN Hermitian generators ${{\tau }_{i}}={{\tau }_{i}}^{\dagger }$ and a commutator $\left[{{\tau }_{i}},{{\tau }_{j}}\right]=i{{f}_{ijk}}{{\tau }_{k}}$ typically normalized such that ${\text{tr}}\left({{\tau }_{i}}^{2}\right)={\tfrac {1}{2}}$ for each $i=1...{{N}^{2}}-1$.

Specifically, in flat spacetime, in classical electrodynamics, a gauge-invariant field strength is related to the gauge fields by:

${{F}^{\mu \nu }}={{\partial }^{\mu }}{{A}^{\nu }}-{{\partial }^{\nu }}{{A}^{\mu }}$.

This may also be written as ${{F}^{\mu \nu }}={{D}^{\mu }}{{A}^{\nu }}-{{D}^{\nu }}{{A}^{\mu }}$ using the gauge-covariant derivative ${{D}^{\mu }}={{\partial }^{\mu }}-ig{{A}^{\mu }}/\hbar c$, because the commutator $\left[{{A}_{\mu }},{{A}_{\nu }}\right]=0$. With ${{c}^{2}}{{\mu }_{0}}{{\varepsilon }_{0}}=1$ and Coulomb constant ${{k}_{\text{e}}}=1/4\pi {{\varepsilon }_{0}}$, the classical Maxwell equation for electric charge strength is:

$c{{\mu }_{0}}{{j}^{\nu }}={{\partial }_{\sigma }}{{F}^{\sigma \nu }}=\left({{g}^{\mu \nu }}{{\partial }_{\sigma }}{{\partial }^{\sigma }}-{{\partial }^{\nu }}{{\partial }^{\mu }}\right){{A}_{\mu }}$,

which spacetime-covariantly includes Gauss’ and Ampere’s laws. The classical equation for magnetic charge strength is

$c{{\mu }_{0}}{{p}^{\sigma \mu \nu }}={{\partial }^{\sigma }}{{F}^{\mu \nu }}+{{\partial }^{\mu }}{{F}^{\nu \sigma }}+{{\partial }^{\nu }}{{F}^{\sigma \mu }}=0$,

which spacetime-covariantly includes Gauss’ magnetism and Faraday’s laws. The zero in the monopole equation and thus the non-existence of magnetic monopoles (setting aside Dirac charge quantization) arises due to the flat spacetime commutator of ordinary derivatives being $\left[{{\partial }_{\mu }},{{\partial }_{\nu }}\right]=0$. In integral form, the Gauss’ magnetism law component of the above becomes $\;\mathbf {B} \cdot \mathrm {d} \mathbf {S} =0$, whereby there is no net flux of magnetic fields across closed spatial surfaces. (Note: The point of various “bag models” of QCD quark confinement, is that there is similarly no net flux of color charge across closed baryon surfaces.)

In quantum electrodynamics, the charge strength becomes related to the Dirac wavefunctions $\psi$ for individual fermions by ${{j}^{\nu }}=e{\overline {\psi }}Q{{\gamma }^{\nu }}\psi$ where $e$ is the electric charge strength related to the running coupling ${{\alpha }_{e}}\left(\mu =0\right)=1/137.036...$ by ${{k}_{\text{e}}}{{e}^{2}}=\hbar c{{\alpha }_{e}}$ and $Q=-1,+{\tfrac {2}{3}},-{\tfrac {1}{3}}$ for the electron, up and down fermions and their higher-generational counterparts. Meanwhile the propagators for the individual photons which form the gauge fields are obtained by inverting the electric charge equation and converting from configuration into momentum space using the substitution $i\hbar {{\partial }^{\mu }}\to {{q}^{\mu }}$ and the $+i\varepsilon$ prescription. Because the charge equation is not invertible without taking some further steps, it is customary to utilize the gauge condition ${{\partial }_{\sigma }}{{A}^{\sigma }}=0$ to obtain

${{A}_{\alpha }}={{\hbar }^{2}}c{{\mu }_{0}}{\frac {-{{g}_{\alpha \nu }}}{{{q}_{\sigma }}{{q}^{\sigma }}+i\varepsilon }}{{j}^{\nu }}$

which includes the photon propagator up to a factor of $i$. Alternatively, one can introduce a Proca mass into the charge equation, then with $i\hbar {{\partial }^{\mu }}\to {{k}^{\mu }}$ can arrive at the inverse:

${{A}_{\alpha }}={{\hbar }^{2}}c{{\mu }_{0}}{\frac {-{{g}_{\alpha \nu }}+{{k}_{\nu }}{{k}_{\alpha }}/{{m}^{2}}}{{{k}_{\sigma }}{{k}^{\sigma }}-{{m}^{2}}+i\varepsilon }}{{j}^{\nu }}$

which includes a massive vector boson propagator up to $i$. Of course, adding a mass by hand destroys renormalizability, so it is necessary to find a way that this can be restored.

The central question studied in this paper, is simply how all the foregoing changes when ${{A}^{\mu }}\to {{G}^{\mu }}={{\tau }_{i}}G_{i}^{\mu }$, so that $\left[{{G}_{\mu }},{{G}_{\nu }}\right]=\left[{{\tau }_{i}},{{\tau }_{j}}\right]{{G}_{i}}_{\mu }{{G}_{j}}_{\nu }=i{{f}_{ijk}}{{\tau }_{k}}{{G}_{i}}_{\mu }{{G}_{j}}_{\nu }\neq 0$ is a non-commuting gauge field, and the field strength therefore graduates to the gauge covariant (not gauge invariant):

${{F}^{\mu \nu }}={{D}^{\mu }}{{G}^{\nu }}-{{D}^{\nu }}{{G}^{\mu }}={{\partial }^{\mu }}{{G}^{\nu }}-{{\partial }^{\nu }}{{G}^{\mu }}-ig\left[{{G}^{\mu }},{{G}^{\nu }}\right]={{\partial }^{\mu }}{{G}^{\nu }}-{{\partial }^{\nu }}{{G}^{\mu }}+g{{f}_{ijk}}{{\tau }_{k}}{{G}_{i}}^{\mu }{{G}_{j}}^{\nu }$.

Everything else in this paper, directly or indirectly, is a result of carefully tracking down all of the mathematical and physical consequences and details of what happens when the gauge fields go from commuting to non-commuting, governed by what Witten and Jaffe refer to as “any compact simple gauge group G” = SU(N).

I will stop here for now, and ask whether everybody agrees with my above characterization of abelian electrodynamics, and what if any changes or additions you would suggest for this characterization. Once that is settled, I will encapsulate what my paper finds and how it does so, about the downstream consequences of going from abelian to nonabelian gauge fields, that is, from U(1) electrodynamics to SU(N) Yang-Mill gauge theory.

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