Dirac sheets and gauge fixing in $U(1)$ lattice gauge theory

Abstract

Photon correlators in $~U(1)~$ pure gauge theory for different lattice actions are considered under the Lorentz gauge condition. They are shown to depend strongly on the gauge fixing ambiguity and on the corresponding existence of Dirac sheets. For the Coulomb phase a gauge fixing algorithm is proposed which avoids Dirac sheets and allows to find the global extremum of the non-local gauge condition. Sorry, figures are not included and can be sent by ordinary mail.