Background field technique and renormalization in lattice gauge theory

Abstract

Lattice gauge theory with a background gauge field is shown to be renormalizable to all orders of perturbation theory. No additional counterterms are required besides those already needed in the absence of the background field. The argument closely follows the treatment given earlier for the case of dimensional regularization by Kluberg-Stern and Zuber. It is based on the BRS, background gauge and shift symmetries of the lattice functional integral.