Nonperturbative Reduction of Yang-Mills Theory and Low Energy Effective Action

The method of reduction of a non-Abelian gauge theory to the corresponding unconstrained system is exemplified for SU(2) Yang-Mills field theory. The reduced Hamiltonian which describes the dynamics of the gauge invariant variables is presented in the form of a strong coupling expansion. The physical variables are separated into fields, which are scalars under spatial rotations, and rotational degrees of freedom. It is shown how in the infrared limit an effective nonlinear sigma model type Lagrangian can be derived which out of the six physical fields involves only one of three scalar fields and two rotational fields summarized in a unit vector. Its possible relation to the effective Lagrangian proposed recently by Faddeev and Niemi is discussed.