Infra-Red Finite Charge Propagation

Abstract

The Coulomb gauge has a long history and many uses. It is especially useful in bound state applications. An important feature of this gauge is that the matter fields have an infra-red finite propagator in an on-shell renormalisation scheme. This is, however, only the case if the renormalisation point is chosen to be the static point on the mass shell, p = (m, 0, 0, 0). In this letter we show how to extend this key property of the Coulomb gauge to an arbitrary relativistic renormalisation point. This is achieved through the introduction of a new class of gauges of which the Coulomb gauge is a limiting case. A physical explanation for this result is given.

Comments: 8 pages, plain TeX, to appear in Modern Physics Letters A