Massive Yang-Mills Theory in Abelian Gauges

Abstract

We prove the perturbative renormalisability of pure SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in the abelian gauge supplemented with mass terms. Whereas mass terms for the gauge fields charged under the diagonal U(1) allow to preserve the standard form of the Slavnov-Taylor identities (but with modified BRST variations), mass terms for the diagonal gauge fields require the study of modified Slavnov-Taylor identities. We comment on the renormalization group equations, which describe the variation of the effective action with the different masses. Finite renormalized masses for the charged gauge fields, in the limit of vanishing bare mass terms, are possible provided a certain combination of wave function renormalization constants vanishes sufficiently rapidly in the infrared limit.