QUANTUM AND CLASSICAL GAUGE SYMMETRIES IN A MODIFIED QUANTIZATION SCHEME

The use of the mass term as a gauge fixing term has been studied by Zwanziger, Parrinello and Jona-Lasinio, which is related to the nonlinear gauge [Formula: see text] of Dirac and Nambu in the large mass limit. We have recently shown that this modified quantization scheme is in fact identical to the conventional local Faddeev–Popov formula without taking the large mass limit, if one takes into account the variation of the gauge field along the entire gauge orbit and if the Gribov complications can be ignored. This suggests that the classical massive vector theory, for example, is interpreted in a more flexible manner either as a gauge invariant theory with a gauge fixing term added, or as a conventional massive nongauge theory. As for massive gauge particles, the Higgs mechanics, where the mass term is gauge-invariant, has a more intrinsic meaning. It is suggested that we extend the notion of quantum gauge symmetry (BRST symmetry) not only to classical gauge theory but also to a wider class of theories whose gauge symmetry is broken by some extra terms in the classical action. We comment on the implications of this extended notion of quantum gauge symmetry.