Massive vector mesons and gauge theory

We show that the requirements of renormalizability and physical consistency imposed on perturbative interactions of massive vector mesons fix the interactions essentially uniquely, i.e. the physical particle content together with renormalizability determines the theory. In particular physical consistency requires the presence of at least one additional (scalar) degree of freedom which was not part of the originally required physical particle content. In its simplest realization (probably the only one) these are scalar fields as envisaged by Higgs for the case of complete symmetry breaking but without the Higgs condensate. The final result agrees precisely with the usual quantization of a classical gauge theory by means of the Higgs mechanism. Hence the principles of local quantum physics via Bohr's correspondence explain the gauge principle as a selection principle among the many (semi)classical coupling possibilities. The statement that the renormalization and consistency requirements of spin=1 QFT lead to the gauge theory structure may be viewed as the inverse of 't Hooft's famous renormalizability proof in (quantized) gauge theories. We also comment on an alternative ghost-free formulation which avoids ''field coordinates'' alltogether and is analogous to a perturbative version of the d=1+1 form factor program. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RA 2999(99-144) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Bonn (Germany); Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (AvH), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman