11 - The gauge field programme (GFP)

Summary

The Utrecht proof of the renormalizability of gauge-invariant massive vectormeson theories which appeared in 1971, as observed by influential contemporary physicists, ‘would change our way of thinking on gauge field theory in a most profound way (Lee, 1972) and ‘caused a great stir, made unification into a central research theme’ (Pais, 1986). More precisely, with the exhilaration of such a great change in perspective, confidence had quickly built up within the collective consciousness of the particle physics community that a system of quantum fields whose dynamics is fixed by the gauge principle was a self-consistent and powerful conceptual framework for describing fundamental interactions in a unified way. An immediate outcome of the new perspective was the rise of the so-called standard model, consisting of the electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics (QCD) (section 11.1). With the encouragement of the empirical successes of the model and the power of its underlying concepts, efforts were made to extend the model to a grand unification and to gravity, assuming the universality of the gauge principle (section 11.2).

The emergence of the gauge field programme (GFP) suggests a dialectical comprehension of the developments of 20th century field theories: taking GFP as a synthesis of the geometrical programme and the quantum field programme. Some justifications for such an outlook are given in section 11.3. But the dialectical developments of field theories have not ended with a Hegelian closure (a final theory or a closed theoretical framework). Some discussions on the stagnation of GFP and on a new direction in the field theoretical research appear in section 11.4.