GAUGE SYMMETRY AS NON-ENFORCING DESCRIPTIVE FREEDOM IN FIELD THEORY

This paper applies a strict mechanism-only elimination framework to gauge symmetry in classical electromagnetism and non-abelian field theories. By admitting only physically enforcing processes—localized energy–momentum exchange, locality, and reciprocal back-reaction—the analysis tests whether gauge symmetry itself acts as a causal agent. The paper shows that gauge transformations alter no interaction boundaries, exchange no conserved quantities, and produce no physical change, and that all observable outcomes remain invariant when gauge symmetry is removed as an explanatory attribution. Gauge symmetry is therefore identified as a non-enforcing descriptive redundancy, while physical enforcement resides entirely in interaction-mediated exchange carried by fields and the underlying stress–energy substrate.