Stochastic quantisation and gauge fixing for non-abelian lattice gauge theories

Abstract

We consider the stochastic quantisation of a general non-abelian lattice gauge theory in group parameter space. It is shown that this geometrical formulation of stochastic quantisation models Monte Carlo simulations based on Metropolis and heat bath algorithms. Within this model we prove that simulations with axial gauge fixing converge more slowly to equilibrium than gauge unfixed simulations, in accord with well known numerical results.