Light-front-quantized QCD in the light-cone gauge: The doubly transverse gauge propagator
The light-front (LF) quantization of QCD in the light-cone gauge has a number of remarkable advantages, including explicit unitarity, a physical Fock expansion, the absence of ghost degrees of freedom, and the decoupling properties needed to prove factorization theorems in high-momentum transfer inclusive and exclusive reactions. We present a systematic study of LF-quantized gauge theory following the Dirac method, and construct a Dyson-Wick S-matrix expansion based on LF time-ordered products. The free theory gauge field is shown to satisfy the Lorentz condition as an operator equation as well as the light-cone gauge condition. Its propagator is found to be transverse with respect to both its 4 momentum and the gauge direction. The interaction Hamiltonian of QCD can be expressed in a form resembling that of covariant theory, except for additional instantaneous interactions which can be treated systematically. The renormalization constants in YM theory are shown to satisfy the identity Z{sub 1}=Z{sub 3} at one-loop order. The QCD {beta} function, computed in the noncovariant light-cone gauge, agrees with that known in the conventional framework. Some comments are also made about the relationship of our LF framework, with a doubly transverse gauge propagator, to the analytic effective charge and renormalization scheme defined by the pinch technique, the unitarity relations, and the spectral representation. LF quantization thus provides a consistent formulation of gauge theory, despite the fact that the hyperplanes x{sup {+-}}=0 used to impose boundary conditions constitute characteristic surfaces of a hyperbolic partial differential equation.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 40230603
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review D, Vol. 64, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.64.045006; Othernumber: PRVDAQ000064000004045006000001; 097114PRD; PBD: 15 Aug 2001; ISSN 0556-2821
- Publisher:
- The American Physical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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