NATURAL SYMMETRIES OF THE YANG-MILLS EQUATIONS

A natural generalized symmetry of the Yang-Mills equations is defined as an infinitesimal transformation of the Yang-Mills field, built in a local, gauge invariant, and Poincaré invariant fashion from the Yang-Mills field strength and its derivatives to any order, which maps solutions of the field equations to other solutions. On the jet bundle of Yang-Mills connections a spinorial coordinate system is introduced that is adapted to the solution subspace defined by the Yang-Mills equations. In terms of this coordinate system the complete classification of natural symmetries is carried out in a straightforward manner. It is found that all natural symmetries of the Yang-Mills equations stem from the gauge transformations admitted by the equations. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.