David Kahana 

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physicist unhingedUpdated 3y

What is 'gauge' in physics in layman's terms?

Imagine that you can measure something using a gauge, such as a pressure gauge,
or a gauge or a meter which determines the electric potential of some conductor.

Further, imagine that the physics of a given situation, what actually happens,
depends only on the difference in electric potential between two conductors, not at
all on the absolute value of either potential. It may sound very unusual, but it is in
fact pretty generally the case, when those conductors are isolated from everything
else.

Then you have a gauge invariance of the physics, since if you measure 500 volts on
the first conductor, say with respect to the electric potential of the Earth, and 1000
volts on the second conductor, with respect to the potential of Earth, and these
conductors are both completely isolated from the Earth, in vacuum say, it will not
matter to anything that happens between the two conductors, what the absolute
value of the potential is. They could be at 9500 volts and 10000 volts instead.

All that matters locally and to the physics, is what the difference between the
potentials is. The potentials must be measured with respect to some reference. But if
it doesn’t matter what that reference is, then there is a gauge freedom in the
description.

The absolute value of the potential has no direct effect. So the choice of it is quite
free - the physics is independent of it. If so, then such a choice, such a freedom of
choice is called a choice of “gauge” in physics.

Electromagnetism is the first example of a theory with such a gauge invariance that
was constructed.

What it means is that many different fields may be chosen that describe the same
basic underlying physical situation, and these fields are called gauge fields.
Electromagnetism has on the face of it six fields that describe the state of the
electromagnetic field everywhere in space. These fields are the three components of
the electric field, and the three components of the magnetic field.

But some of the equations of electromagnetism amount to constraints among those

six fields that always must be satisfied among those six fields, and so less fields
actually matter than six. In fact, four potentials are enough to describe all possible
situations, and there is a freedom in the choice of those potentials. That freedom is
called a gauge freedom or a choice of gauge.

Interestingly when it comes to making a quantum theory involving the

electromagnetic field and its sources it turns out that the four potentials are actually
the more basic fields, and that they directly influence the physical predictions, quite
independently of whether there are any electric or magnetic fields present in a given
region.
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Martin Hauser · 3y
This sounds like something worthy of further investigation in a foundational manner. Has any
been or is any such being done?
David Kahana  · 3y
Yes, just as Zane said, gauge theories are now well-established - they are the basis for the
standard model of particle physics, and most theorists believe that gauge symmetry is
basic and also exact, since it is very hard to make self-consistent renormalizable quantum
field theories that would describe high energy particle interactions without exact gauge
symmetry.

It is possible however that at very high energy scales, gauge symmetry may be broken,
but there are pretty strong experimental limits. The general modern point of view is that
all quantum field theories should be viewed as effective field theories, thus
renormalizability might be viewed as not so critical, if the field theories arise from some
underlying consistent theory valid at high energy. In that case, there is no need to carry
out integrals over all momenta in loop diagrams, since there would be new physics
beyond some scale.

But the differential equations arising from gauge theories are non-linear and have a very
rich set of non-trivial classical solutions, and so the non-perturbative structure of the
theories remains pretty poorly understood and it is still a subject of active study.
Martin Hauser · 3y

But the differential equations arising from gauge theories are non-linear and
have a very rich set of non-trivial classical solutions, and so the non-perturbative
structure of the theories remains pretty poorly understood and it is still a subject
of active study.

Mandalic geometry is non-linear and based on a gauge mathematical logic which

generates gauge symmetries in a manner distinct from the differential equation
approach of quantum field theories. I can’t say with certainty if this alternative
mathematical logic would be applicable to QFT, but if so, it is far simpler in terms of
comprehension and use than are non-linear differential equations. (Well a diehard
mathematician might not agree, but physicists seeking new physics would do well to
take note.)
Emily Jakobs · 3y
I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but gauge theory has been around for a long time
and is standard material for anyone who’s taken an upper-division (but still
undergraduate) electromagnetism or classical field theory class (or who knows the
equivalent material), so whatever it is that you are looking for, it almost definitely exists
somewhere. By “foundational”, do you mean something like asking why the E-M field has
a gauge invariance? If so, you can kick the can down the road a bit by postulating that
there is indeed a Grand Unified Theory of QFT, in which case you end up with one field
with one big symmetry group “splitting into” a bunch of fields with symmetry groups 
U(1) ���(1)  (for one “section” of the theory),  SU(2) ������(2)  (for another
“section”), and  SU(3) ������(3) , whose product is (possibly some subset of) the
big symmetry group. The E-M field is in the section that gets  U(1) ���(1) . Now why do
QFTs have gauge symmetries at all? The mathematical answer is that, well, tons of partial
differential equations have solutions that are invariant under the action of some Lie group.
The PDEs that define the Standard Model are particularly nice in that solutions to certain
equations have invariant solutions under the action of one the three aforementioned
unitary Lie groups. When you compute the solutions and the physical interpretation
thereof, this is the physical interpretation of the invariance under some Lie group (which,
in this context, is usually called a gauge group).
Jon Nelson · 3y
The best easily understood physics education I know of can be found on YouTube PBS
spacetime.