  The Hamiltonian describing 2D electron gas, in a spin-orbit active medium,
can be cast into a consistent non-Abelian gauge field theory leading to a
proper definition of the spin current. The generally advocated gauge symmetric
version of the theory results in current densities that are gauge covariant, a
fact that poses severe concerns on their physical nature. We show that in fact
the problem demands gauge fixing, leaving no room to ambiguity in the
definition of physical spin currents. Gauge fixing also allows for polarized
edge excitations not present in the gauge symmetric case. The scenario here is
analogous to that of superconductivity gauge theory. We develop a variational
formulation that accounts for the constraints between U(1) physical fields and
SU(2) gauge fields and show that gauge fixing renders a physical matter and
radiation currents and derive the particular consequences for the Rashba SO
interaction.
