Wormhole effects on Yang-Mills theory

Abstract In this paper wormhole effects on SO(3) YM theory are examined. The wormhole wave functions for the scalar, the vector and the tensor expansion modes are computed assuming a small gauge coupling which leads to an effective decoupling of gravity and YM theory. These results are used to determine the wormhole vertices and the corresponding effective operators for the lowest expansion mode of each type. For the lowest scalar mode we find a renormalization of the gauge coupling from the two-point function and the operators tr (F 3 ), tr (F 2 F ) from the three-point function. The two-point function for the lowest vector mode contributes to the gauge coupling renormalization only, whereas the lowest tensor mode can also generate higher derivative terms.