Hamiltonian Formulations of Yang-Mills Quantum Theory and the Gribov Problem

Abstract

We review the status of quantising (non-abelian) gauge theories using different versions of a Hamiltonian formulation corresponding to Dirac's instant and front form of dynamics, respectively. In order to control infrared divergences we work in a finite spatial volume, chosing a torus geometry for convenience. We focus on the determination of the physical configuration space of gauge invariant variables via gauge fixing. This naturally leads us to the issue of the Gribov problem. We discuss it for different gauge choices, in particular finite volume modifications of the axial gauge. Conventional and light-front quantisation are compared and the differences pointed out.