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In theoretical physics, light cone gauge is an approach to remove the ambiguities arising from a gauge symmetry. While the term refers to several situations, a null component of a field A is set to zero (or a simple function of other variables) in all cases.[1][2]
The advantage of light-cone gauge is that fields, e.g. gluons in the QCD case, are transverse. Consequently, all ghosts and other unphysical degrees of freedom are eliminated. The disadvantage is that some symmetries such as Lorentz symmetry become obscured (they become non-manifest, i.e. hard to prove).
- ^ The light cone gauge, Samir D. Mathur
- ^ QCD calculations in the light-cone gauge Nuclear Physics B - Volume 165, Issue 2, 24 March 1980, Pages 237–268 by D.J. Pritchard, W.J. Stirling [1]