Ghost fields

In physics, Faddeev–Popov ghosts (also called gauge ghosts or ghost fields) are extraneous fields which are introduced into gauge quantum field theories to maintain the consistency of the path integral formulation. They are named after Ludvig Faddeev and Victor Popov.

A more general meaning of the word ghost in theoretical physics is also discussed below.

The necessity for Faddeev–Popov ghosts follows from the requirement that quantum field theories yield unambiguous, non-singular solutions. This is not possible in the path integral formulation when a gauge symmetry is present since there is no procedure for selecting among physically equivalent solutions related by gauge transformation. The path integrals overcount field configurations corresponding to the same physical state; the measure of the path integrals contains a factor which does not allow obtaining various results directly from the action.

In particle physics, a ghost condensate is a speculative proposal in which a ghost, an excitation of a field with a wrong sign of the kinetic term, acquires a vacuum expectation value. This phenomenon breaks Lorentz invariance spontaneously. Around the new vacuum state, all excitations have a positive norm, and therefore the probabilities are positive definite.

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