A REPRESENTATION INDEPENDENT PROPAGATOR .1. COMPACT LIE-GROUPS

Conventional path integral expressions for propagators are representat ion dependent. Rather than having to adapt each propagator to the repr esentation in question, it is shown that for compact Lie groups it is possible to introduce a propagator that is representation independent. For a given set of kinematical variables this propagator is a single function independent of any particular choice of fiducial vector, whic h monetheless, correctly propagates each element of the coherent state representation associated with these kinematical variables. Although the configuration space is in general curved, nevertheless the lattice phase-space path integral for the representation independent propagat or has the form appropriate to flat space. To illustrate the general t heory a representation independent propagator is explicitly constructe d for the Lie group SU(2).