Curved Yang–Mills–Higgs gauge theories in the case of massless gauge bosons

Abstract

Alexei Kotov and Thomas Strobl have introduced a covariantized formulation of Yang–Mills–Higgs gauge theories whose main motivation was to replace the Lie algebra with Lie algebroids. This allows the introduction of a possibly non-flat connection $\nabla$ on this bundle, after also introducing an additional 2-form $\zeta$ in the field strength. We will study this theory in the simplified situation of Lie algebra bundles, i.e. only massless gauge bosons, and we will provide a physical motivation of $\zeta$. Moreover, we classify $\nabla$ using the gauge invariance, resulting into that $\nabla$ needs to be a Lie derivation law covering a pairing $\Xi$, as introduced by Mackenzie. There is also a field redefinition, keeping the physics invariant, but possibly changing $\zeta$ and the curvature of $\nabla$. We are going to study whether this can lead to a classical theory, and we will realize that this has a strong correspondence to Mackenzie’s study about extending Lie algebroids with Lie algebra bundles. We show that Mackenzie’s obstruction class is also an obstruction for having non-flat connections which are not related to a flat connection using the field redefinitions. This class is related to ${\mathrm{d}}^{\nabla }\zeta$, a tensor which also measures the failure of the Bianchi identity of the field strength and which is invariant under the field redefinition. This tensor will also provide hints about whether $\zeta$ can vanish after a field redefinition.