Gaugeon formalism in the framework of generalized BRST symmetry

Abstract

We consider gaugeon formulations which discuss the quantum gauge freedom covariantly in the framework of generalized BRST transformation for the Yang-Mills theory as well as the BRST invariant Higgs model. We generalize the BRST symmetries of both the Yang-Mills theory and the Higgs model by making the transformation parameter finite and field-dependent. Remarkably, we observe that the gaugeon Lagrangian which describe the quantum gauge freedom appear automatically in the effective theories along with the natural shift in gauge parameters under specific finite field-dependent parameters.