Pure gauge theories and spatial periodicity

Abstract

Properties of pure gauge theories in thermal equilibrium as calculated via standard functional integral treatments are mathematically identical to ground state properties of a theory with spatially-periodic boundary conditions imposed on the gauge fields. Such a theory has states that have no analog in a theory in which only physical observables associated with gauge-invariant operators are required to be periodic, rather than the gauge fields themselves; these states are in topological sectors that do not exist in the unconstrained theory. The topology arises because the boundary conditions in the functional integral are gauge invariant on a cylinder but not in the unconstrained theory.