Geometrical approach to the reduction of gauge theories with spontaneously broken symmetry

The reduction of a theory with gauge group G to a theory which is gauge invariant with respect to a subgroup H of G is formulated in a geometrical language. It is assumed that among the physical fields considered as cross-sections of fibre bundles with structure group G there exists a section of the fibre bundle with fibre isomorphic to G/H — a Higgs field. The investigation of the broken gauge symmetry is based on the reduction theorem for structure groups of principal fibre bundles. The reduction of fields and their covariant derivatives is studied.