A new look at the Dirac quantization condition
Abstract
The angular momentum of any quantum system should be {\it unambiguously} quantized. We show that such a quantization fails for a pure Dirac monopole due to a previously overlooked field angular momentum from the monopole-electric charge system coming from the magnetic field of the Dirac string and the electric field of the charge. Applying the point-splitting method to the monopole-charge system yields a total angular momentum which obeys the standard angular momentum algebra, but which is gauge {\it variant}. In contrast it is possible to properly quantize the angular momentum of a topological 't Hooft-Polyakov monopole plus charge. This implies that pure Dirac monopoles are not viable -- only 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles are theoretically consistent with angular momentum quantization and gauge invariance.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2210.17522,
title = {A new look at the Dirac quantization condition},
author = {Michael Dunia and P. Q. Hung and Douglas Singleton},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.17522},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
Published version EPJC, 83, 487 (2023)