This letter examines diagrammatic cancellations for Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) in the general linear gauge. These cancellations combine Feynman graphs of various topologies and provide a method to reconstruct the gauge dependence of the electron propagator from the result of a particular gauge by means of a linear Dyson-Schwinger equation. We use this method in combination with dimensional regularization to demonstrate how the 3-loop ε-expansion in the Feynman gauge determines the ε-expansions for all gauge parameter dependent terms to 4 loops.

Using Hopf-algebraic structures as well as diagrammatic techniques for determining the Slavnov-Taylor identities for QCD we construct the relations for the triple and quartic gluon vertices at one loop. By making the longitudinal projection on an external gluon of a Green's function we show that the gluon self-energy of that leg is consistently replaced by a ghost selfenergy. The resulting identities are then studied by evaluating all the graphs for an off-shell non-exceptional momentum configuration. In the case of the 3-point function this is for the most general momentum case and for the 4-point function we consider the fully symmetric point.

In the context of massless quantum electrodynamics (QED) with a linear covariant gauge fixing, the connection between the counterterm and the Hopf-algebraic approach to renormalization is examined. The coproduct formula of Green's functions contains two invariant charges, which give rise to different renormalization group functions. All formulas are tested by explicit computations to third loop order. The possibility of a finite electron self-energy by fixing a generalized linear covariant gauge is discussed. An analysis of subdivergences leads to the conclusion that such a gauge only exists in quenched QED.

This paper reports on our diagrammatic approach to characterize the gauge dependence of Quantum Electrodynamics in the linear covariant gauge. Our dimensionally independent technique is purely based on a perturbative analysis and allows us to construct the full expansion in the gauge parameter of a Green's function from its value in a particular gauge (such as the Feynman or Landau gauge). Further, we clarify the compatiblity of perturbation theory and the Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transform.