Creation and evolution of magnetic helicity
High Energy Physics - Theory
2009-10-31 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Mathematical Physics
math.MP
Abstract
Projecting a non-Abelian SU(2) vacuum gauge field - a pure gauge constructed from the group element U - onto a fixed (electromagnetic) direction in isospace gives rise to a nontrivial magnetic field, with nonvanishing magnetic helicity, which coincides with the winding number of U. Although the helicity is not conserved under Maxwell (vacuum) evolution, it retains one-half its initial value at infinite time.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-th/9911072,
title = {Creation and evolution of magnetic helicity},
author = {R. Jackiw and So-Young Pi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9911072},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Clarifying remarks and references added; 12 pages, 1 figure using BoxedEPSF, REVTeX macros; submitted to Phys Rev D; email to jackiw@ralph2.mit.edu