Electromagnetic Duality Anomaly in Curved Spacetimes

Agulló, Iván; Río, Adrián del; Navarro-Salas, José

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.118.111301

Cited by 44 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…This symmetry is exact in the classical theory even in the presence of an arbitrary gravitational background, as pointed out some years later in [16]. However, in exact analogy with the fermionic case, quantum effects can break this symmetry of the action and induce an anomaly [17,18]. In the language of particles, this would imply that the difference in the number of photons with helicities h = ±1, N R − N L , is not necessarily conserved in curved spacetimes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

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On the Electric-Magnetic Duality Symmetry: Quantum Anomaly, Optical Helicity, and Particle Creation

2018

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It is well known that not every symmetry of a classical field theory is also a symmetry of its quantum version. When this occurs, we speak of quantum anomalies. The existence of anomalies imply that some classical Noether charges are no longer conserved in the quantum theory. In this paper, we discuss a new example for quantum electromagnetic fields propagating in the presence of gravity. We argue that the symmetry under electric-magnetic duality rotations of the source-free Maxwell action is anomalous in curved spacetimes. The classical Noether charge associated with these transformations accounts for the net circular polarization or the optical helicity of the electromagnetic field. Therefore, our results describe the way the spacetime curvature changes the helicity of photons and opens the possibility of extracting information from strong gravitational fields through the observation of the polarization of photons. We also argue that the physical consequences of this anomaly can be understood in terms of the asymmetric quantum creation of photons by the gravitational field.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…The calculation of the vacuum expectation value ∇ µ j µ D in the quantum theory follows exactly the same steps shown above for fermions. Namely, ∇ µ j µ D is given again [18,19] in terms of the second DeWitt coefficient E 2 (x) by…”

Section: B Electrodynamics In Curved Spacetimementioning

confidence: 99%

On the Electric-Magnetic Duality Symmetry: Quantum Anomaly, Optical Helicity, and Particle Creation

2018

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“…Recently, the question has arisen if and how a similar effect for ensembles of rotating photons could be made possible [17][18][19]. In part, this question can be motivated by the relation of the CVE to the mixed gravitational anomalies as well as by the interesting results on the existence of a similar anomaly for photons [20,21]. From a first sight, the case of photons the notion of chirality could naturally be replaced by the concept of helicity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Zilch vortical effect

2018

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We study the question if a helicity transporting current is generated in a rotating photon gas at finite temperature. One problem is that there is no gauge invariant local notion of helicity or helicity current. We circumvent this by studying not only the optical helicity current but also the gauge-invariant "zilch" current. In order to avoid problems of causality, we quantize the system on a cylinder of a finite radius and then discuss the limit of infinite radius. We find that net helicityand zilch currents are only generated in the case of the finite radius and are due to duality violating boundary conditions. A universal result exists for the current density on the axes of rotation in the high-temperature limit. To lowest order in the angular velocity, it takes a form similar to the wellknown temperature dependence of the chiral vortical effect for chiral fermions. We briefly discuss possible relations to gravitational anomalies. arXiv:1807.10705v1 [hep-th] 27 Jul 2018 (T E,T M ) J = ωA (T M,T E) J .We can therefore introduce eigenvectors of the curl operatorwith the eigenvaluesIn terms of electric and magnetic fields these modes fulfill the relationswhich show that these modes correspond to left-and right-circularly polarized electromagnetic fields. The gauge potential can now be quantized in this basis as follows:with ω 2 J = k 2 z + k 2 ⊥ as in Eq. (25). The projection of the angular momentum on the z axis can be computed from the expression of the Poynting vector P = i 2 E × E † as3 x : h := J α (+) † J α (+) J − α (−) † J α (−) J , (72) Q ζ = d 3 x : ζ := J ω 2 J α (+) † J α (+) J − α (−) † J α (−) J

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“…leave the Maxwell equations invariant. It is, however, not such a simple task [19][20][21][22] to prove that (2.22) are a symmetry in the Noether sense, i.e., that their infinitesimal version…”

Section: B Electric-magnetic Duality Symmetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Non-Local Action for Electrodynamics: Duality Symmetry and the Aharonov-Bohm Effect, Revisited

Bernabeu

Navarro-Salas

2019

Symmetry

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A non-local action functional for electrodynamics depending on the electric and magnetic fields, instead of potentials, has been proposed in the literature. In this work we elaborate and improve this proposal. We also use this formalism to confront the electric-magnetic duality symmetry of the electromagnetic field and the Aharonov-Bohm effect, two subtle aspects of electrodynamics that we examine in a novel way. We show how the former can be derived from the simple harmonic oscillator character of vacuum electrodynamics, while also demonstrating how the magnetic version of the latter naturally arises in an explicitly non-local manner.

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Electromagnetic Duality Anomaly in Curved Spacetimes

Cited by 44 publications

References 25 publications

On the Electric-Magnetic Duality Symmetry: Quantum Anomaly, Optical Helicity, and Particle Creation

On the Electric-Magnetic Duality Symmetry: Quantum Anomaly, Optical Helicity, and Particle Creation

Zilch vortical effect

A Non-Local Action for Electrodynamics: Duality Symmetry and the Aharonov-Bohm Effect, Revisited

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