Recently Bandos, Lechner, Sorokin, and Townsend [arXiv:2007.09092] have discovered that Maxwell's electrodynamics can be generalized so that the resulting nonlinear theory preserves both conformal invariance and SO(2) duality-rotation invariance. Their result can be derived in a simpler way.
We examine three versions of non-relativistic electrodynamics, known as the electric and magnetic limit theories of Maxwell's equations and Galilean electrodynamics (GED) which is the off-shell non-relativistic limit of Maxwell plus a free scalar field. For each of these three cases we study the couplings to non-relativistic dynamical charged matter (point particles and charged complex scalars). The GED theory contains besides the electric and magnetic potentials a so-called mass potential making the mass parameter a local function. The electric and magnetic limit theories can be coupled to tw…
Revisiting the Symmetries of Galilean Electrodynamics
Trinity College Dublin(都柏林三一学院);Hamilton Mathematics Institute, Trinity College Dublin(都柏林三一学院汉密尔顿数学研究所);II. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Hamburg(汉堡大学第二理论物理研究所)
We study higher-form symmetries in a low-energy effective theory of a massless axion coupled with a photon in $(3+1)$ dimensions. It is shown that the higher-form symmetries of this system are accompanied by a semistrict 3-group (2-crossed module) structure, which can be found by the correlation functions of symmetry generators of the higher-form symmetries. We argue that the Witten effect and anomalous Hall effect in the axion electrodynamics can be described in terms of 3-group transformations.
We study non-invertible global symmetries in $(3+1)$-dimensional axion electrodynamics with a massless axion and a massless photon. In addition to a previously known non-invertible 0-form shift symmetry of the axion, we find a non-invertible 1-form symmetry associated with the equation of motion for the photon. Correlation functions of non-invertible symmetry defects lead to invertible 1- and 2-form symmetry defects associated with Bianchi identities for the axion and photon. In terms of the correlation functions, we discuss several phenomena for extended objects, such as induced fractional el…
We study higher-form global symmetries and a higher-group structure of a low-energy limit of $(3+1)$-dimensional axion electrodynamics in a gapped phase described by a topological action. We argue that the higher-form symmetries should have a semi-strict 4-group (3-crossed module) structure by consistency conditions of couplings of the topological action to background gauge fields for the higher-form symmetries. We find possible 't Hooft anomalies for the 4-group global symmetry, and discuss physical consequences.
A new representation of the scalar electrodynamics is discovered which gives a more redundant description of electromagnetic theory and suitable to construct an appropriate matter action which contains two global symmetries . The symmetries of the model when localized by gauge principle , provides a co-variant fracton gauge theory.
In this thesis, we aim to find the asymptotic symmetries of the Kalb-Ramond field in four dimensions at future null infinity. We start by reviewing the asymptotic symmetries of electrodynamics in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime at future null infinity. We continue by investigating the asymptotic symmetries of the Kalb-Ramond field at future null infinity. We motivate the fall-off conditions by demanding the finiteness of energy, momentum, angular momentum and charge flux through future null infinity. We expand the gauge fields in ``radial" and Lorenz gauge and compute the generating charg…
We investigate the asymptotic symmetry group of a scalar field minimally-coupled to an abelian gauge field using the Hamiltonian formulation. This extends previous work by Henneaux and Troessaert on the pure electromagnetic case. We deal with minimally coupled massive and massless scalar fields and find that they behave differently insofar as the latter do not allow for canonically implemented asymptotic boost symmetries. We also consider the abelian Higgs model and show that its asymptotic canonical symmetries reduce to the Poincaré group in an unproblematic fashion.
We introduce an effective action for non-dissipative magnetohydrodynamics. A crucial guiding principle is the generalized global symmetry of electrodynamics, which naturally leads to introducing a "dual photon" as the degree of freedom responsible for the electromagnetic component of the fluid. The formalism includes additional degrees of freedom and symmetries which characterize the hydrodynamic regime. By suitably enhancing one of the symmetries, the theory becomes force-free electrodynamics. The symmetries furthermore allow to systematize local and non-local conserved helicities. We also di…
We investigate a higher-group structure of massless axion electrodynamics in $(3+1)$ dimensions. By using the background gauging method, we show that the higher-form symmetries necessarily have a global semistrict 3-group (2-crossed module) structure, and exhibit 't Hooft anomalies of the 3-group. In particular, we find a cubic mixed 't Hooft anomaly between 0-form and 1-form symmetries, which is specific to the higher-group structure.
We study higher-form symmetries and a higher group in the low energy limit of a $(3+1)$-dimensional axion electrodynamics with a massive axion and a massive photon. A topological field theory describing topological excitations with the axion-photon coupling, which we call a topological axion electrodynamics, is obtained in the low energy limit. Higher-form symmetries of the topological axion electrodynamics are specified by equations of motion and Bianchi identities. We find that there are induced anyons on the intersections of symmetry generators. By a link of worldlines of the anyons, we sho…
Source-free so-called ModMax theories of nonlinear electrodynamics in the four dimensional Minkowski spacetime vacuum are the only possible continuous deformations -- and as a function of a single real and positive parameter -- of source-free Maxwell linear electrodynamics in the same vacuum, which preserve all the same Poincaré and conformal spacetime symmetries as well as the continuous duality invariance of Maxwell's theory. Null field configurations of the latter however, including null electromagnetic knots, are singular for the Lagrangian formulation of any spacetime Poincaré and conform…
We construct a Lagrangian for general nonlinear electrodynamics that features electric and magnetic potentials on equal footing. In the language of this Lagrangian, discrete and continuous electric-magnetic duality symmetries can be straightforwardly imposed, leading to a simple formulation for theories with the $SO(2)$ duality invariance. When specialized to the conformally invariant case, our construction provides a manifestly duality-symmetric formulation of the recently discovered ModMax theory. We briefly comment on a natural generalization of this approach to $p$-forms in $2p+2$ dimensio…
We consider $(p+1)$-form gauge fields in flat $(2p+4)$-dimensions for which the radiation and the Coulomb solutions have the same asymptotic falloff behavior. Imposing appropriate falloff behavior on fields and adopting a Maxwell-type action, we construct the boundary term which renders the action principle well-defined in the Lorenz gauge. We then compute conserved surface charges and the corresponding asymptotic charge algebra associated with nontrivial gauge transformations. We show that for $p\geq 1$ cases we have three sets of conserved asymptotic charges associated with exact, coexact an…
We consider the nonlinearly extended Einstein-Maxwell-axion theory, which is based on the account for two symmetries: first, the discrete symmetry associated with the properties of the axion field, second, the Jackson's symmetry, prescribing to the electrodynamics to be invariant with respect to the rotation in the plane coordinated by the electric and magnetic fields. We derive the master equations of the nonlinearly extended theory, and apply them to the Bianchi-I model with magnetic field. The main result, describing the behavior of the nonlinearly coupled axion, electromagnetic and gravita…
在这篇文章中,我们仔细区分了双折射(光子传播速度的偏振相关加倍)和双度量(其中两个光子偏振“看到”两个不同的度量)的概念。我们强调,这些概念在逻辑上是不同的,虽然有特殊的对称性,在普通的(3+1)维非线性电动力学,这意味着更强的条件双度量。为了说明这一现象,我们研究了(3+1)维非线性电动力学的广义版本,它允许包含任意的不均匀性和背景场。[For例如,引力场(a la Gordon)、导体(a la Casimir)和引力场(a la Landau-Lifshitz)。很容易证明广义理论是双线性的:在(3+1)维中,频率和波数之间的关系菲涅耳方程总是四次的。在某些情况下(例如,普通的非线性电动力学),四次函数分解成两个二次函数,从而提供了一个双度量理论,这是有点困难的。有时四次曲线是一个完美的平方,意味着一个唯一的有效度量。我们调查这个因式分解过程的一般性。