Functional integration on spaces of connections

Authors

Stephen F. Sawin, Fairfield UniversityFollow
John C. Baez, University of California - RiversideFollow

Document Type

Article

Article Version

Post-print

Publication Date

1997

Abstract

Suppose thatGis a compact connected Lie group andP→Mis a smooth principalG-bundle. We define a “cylinder function” on the space of smooth connections onPto be a continuous complex function of the holonomies along finitely many piecewise smoothly immersed curves inM. Completing the algebra of cylinder functions in the sup norm, we obtain a commutative C*-algebra Fun(). Let a “generalized measure” on be a bounded linear functional on Fun(). We construct a generalized measureμ₀on that is invariant under all automorphisms of the bundleP(not necessarily fixing the baseM). This result extends previous work which assumedMwas real-analytic and used only piecewise analytic curves in the definition of cylinder functions. As before, any graph withnedges embedded inMdetermines a C*-subalgebra of Fun() isomorphic toC(Gⁿ), and the generalized measureμ₀: Fun()→ restricts to the linear functional onC(Gⁿ) given by integration against normalized Haar measure onGⁿ. Our result implies that the group of gauge transformations acts as unitary operators onL²(), the Hilbert space completion of Fun() in the norm ‖F‖₂=μ₀(|F|²)^1/2. Using “spin networks,” we construct explicit functions spanning the subspaceL²(/)⊆L²() consisting of vectors invariant under the action of .

Comments

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Functional Analysis. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Functional Analysis [150, 1, 1997] DOI: 10.1006/jfan.1997.3108

Publication Title

Journal of Functional Analysis

Repository Citation

Sawin, Stephen F. and Baez, John C., "Functional integration on spaces of connections" (1997). Mathematics Faculty Publications. 16.
https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/mathandcomputerscience-facultypubs/16

Published Citation

Baez, John C., and Stephen Sawin. 1997. Functional integration on spaces of connections. Journal of Functional Analysis 150 (1), 1-26.

DOI

10.1006/jfan.1997.3108

Peer Reviewed