On the Gauge Orbit Space Stratification

A method for determining the orbit types, as well as their partial ordering, of the action of the group of gauge transformations on the space of connections for gauge theories with gauge group SU(n) in space-time dimension d ≤ 4 is presented. The method enables one to determine explicitly the corresponding stratification of the gauge orbit space. As an application, we discuss a criterion that characterizes kinematical nodes for physical states in 2+1-dimensional Chern-Simons-Yang-Mills theory proposed by Asorey et al..