A class of covariant gauges allowing one to interpolate between the Landau, the maximal Abelian, the linear covariant and the Curci-Ferrari gauges is discussed. Multiplicative renormalizability is proven to all orders by means of algebraic renormaliz
ation. All one-loop anomalous dimensions of the fields and gauge parameters are explicitly evaluated in the MSbar scheme.
We investigate a dynamical mass generation mechanism for the off-diagonal gluons and ghosts in SU(N) Yang-Mills theories, quantized in the maximal Abelian gauge. Such a mass can be seen as evidence for the Abelian dominance in that gauge. It originat
es from the condensation of a mixed gluon-ghost operator of mass dimension two, which lowers the vacuum energy. We construct an effective potential for this operator by a combined use of the local composite operators technique with algebraic renormalization and we discuss the gauge parameter independence of the results. We also show that it is possible to connect the vacuum energy, due to the mass dimension two condensate discussed here, with the non-trivial vacuum energy originating from the condensate <A^2>, which has attracted much attention in the Landau gauge.
Massive renormalizable Yang-Mills theories in three dimensions are analysed within the algebraic renormalization in the Landau gauge. In analogy with the four dimensional case, the renormalization of the mass operator A^2 turns out to be expressed in
terms of the fields and coupling constant renormalization factors. We verify the relation we obtain for the operator anomalous dimension by explicit calculations in the large N_f. The generalization to other gauges such as the nonlinear Curci-Ferrari gauge is briefly outlined.
