In this paper we put forward a systematic and unifying approach to construct gauge invariant composite fields out of connections. It relies on the existence in the theory of a group valued field with a prescribed gauge transformation. As an illustration, we detail some examples. Two of them are based on known results: the first one provides a reinterpretation of the symmetry breaking mechanism of the electroweak part of the Standard Model of particle physics; the second one is an application to Einstein's theory of gravity described as a gauge theory in terms of Cartan connections. The last example depicts a new situation: starting with a gauge field theory on Atiyah Lie algebroids, the gauge invariant composite fields describe massive vector fields. Some mathematical and physical discussions illustrate and highlight the relevance and the generality of this approach.Comment: 22 pages, revised version to appear in Int. J. of Geometric Methods in Modern Physic

In this paper we introduce and study some mathematical structures on top of transitive Lie algebroids in order to formulate gauge theories in terms of generalized connections and their curvature: metrics, Hodge star operator and integration along the algebraic part of the transitive Lie algebroid (its kernel). Explicit action functionals are given in terms of global objects and in terms of their local description as well. We investigate applications of these constructions to Atiyah Lie algebroids and to derivations on a vector bundle. The obtained gauge theories are discussed with respect to ordinary and to similar non-commutative gauge theories.Comment: 30 pages. Final version. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1109.428