https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s2005-02277-x
Theoretical Physics
2PI effective action and gauge dependence identities
1
Department of Physics, Brandon University, R7A 6A9 , Manitoba, Canada
2
Department of Physics, University of Winnipeg, R73 2E9 , Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
* e-mail: carrington@brandonu.ca
The problem of maintaining gauge invariance when truncating the two-particle irreducible (2PI) effective action has been studied recently by several authors. Here we give a simple and very general derivation of the gauge dependence identities for the off-shell 2PI effective action. We consider the case where the gauge is fixed by an arbitrary function of the quantum gauge field, subject only to the restriction that the Faddeev-Popov matrix is invertible. We also study the background field gauge. We address the role that these identities play in solving gauge invariance problems associated with physical quantities calculated using a truncated on-shell 2PI effective action.
© Springer-Verlag, 2005