Dimensional Continuation of Gauge-Invariant Quantities in Yang-Mills Theory

Abstract

Consideration of some perturbatively calculated gauge-invariant expectation values of local noncomposite operators in pure Yang-Mills theory indicates that those expectation values which are not dimension specific, and which are well defined near $D=4$ dimensions, have some {\it finite} limit as the evaluated expression is naively extrapolated from $D=4$ to $D=2$. If this finite limit is a generic feature for such quantities it would not only be quite remarkable but also of some utility : For example, one may then use it as a convenient necessary condition when checking gauge invariance. Some examples are discussed at nonzero temperature.