Determining and uniformly estimating the gauge potential corresponding to a given gauge field on M ⁴

Abstract

In an earlier paper on the field copy problem, we proved that there exists a generic set of connections (gauge potentials) on a principle bundle with a semi-simple structure group over a four-dimensional base manifold for which the connection is uniquely determined by its curvature (gauge field). We conjectured that there exists a smaller, but still generic, set of connections for which the curvature map sending a connection to its curvature admits a continuous inverse with respect to the appropriate function space topologies. The conjecture says, in other words, that restricting to certain generic curvature 2-forms, one can determine and uniformly estimate the connection and its derivatives from the curvature and uniform estimates of its derivatives. In this Letter we give an affirmative answer to the conjecture and show, moreover, that the set of such connections contains an open dense set in the Whitney C ^∞ topology.