Question

If you're writing about a theory with Yang-Mills/Gauge fields for an arbitrary reductive gauge group coupled to arbitrary matter fields in some representation, is it best to call it a Yang-Mills theory or a Gauge theory?

I've heard that one is more likely to refer to a theory with no matter sector - but I can't remember which one! Or are the terms basically interchangeable in the context of quantum field theory?

Answer 1

Very briefly, a classical theory is a gauge theory if its field variables have a non-trivial local gauge transformation that leaves the action gauge invariant. Usually, a gauge transformation is demanded to be a continuous transformation.

[Gauge theory is a huge subject, and I only have time to give some explanation here, and defer a more complete answer to, e.g., the book "Quantization of Gauge Systems" by M. Henneaux and C. Teitelboim. By the word local is meant that the gauge transformation in different space-time point are free to be transformed independently without affecting each others transformation (as opposed to a global transformation). By the word non-trivial is meant that the gauge transformation does not vanish identically on-shell. Note that an infinitesimal gauge transformation does not have to be on the form

nor does it have to involve a field. More generally, an infinitesimal gauge transformation is of the form

where are Lagrangian gauge generators, which form a gauge algebra, which, in turn, may be open and reducible, and are infinitesimal gauge parameters. Besides gauge transformations that are continuously connected to the identity transformation, there may be so-called large gauge transformations, which are not connected continuously to the identity transformation, and the action may not always be invariant under those. Ultimately, physicists want to quantize the classical gauge theories using, e.g., Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism, but let's leave quantization for a separate question. Various subtleties arise at the quantum level as, e.g., pointed out in the comments below. Moreover, some quantum theories do not have classical counterparts.]

Yang-Mills theory is just one example out of many of a gauge theory, although the most important one. To name a few other examples: Chern-Simons theory and BF theory are gauge theories. Gravity can be viewed as a gauge theory.

Yang-Mills theory without matter is called pure Yang-Mills theory.