So in the G -bundle formulation, a gauge theory admits Dirac monopoles provided G is not simply connected, whenever there are paths that go around the group that cannot be deformed to a constant path (a path whose image consists of a single point). U(1), which has quantized charges, is not simply connected and can have Dirac monopoles while R , its universal covering group, is simply connected, doesn't have quantized charges and does not admit Dirac monopoles. The mathematical definition is equivalent to the physics definition provided that—following Dirac—gauge fields are allowed that are defined only patch-wise, and the gauge field on different patches are glued after a gauge transformation.