Electric-magnetic duality in the quantum theory
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2024-11-19 v1
Abstract
It is known that an electric-magnetic duality transformation is a symmetry of the classical source-free Maxwell theory in generic spacetimes. This provides a conserved Noether charge, physically related to the polarization state of the electromagnetic field. We argue that this conservation law fails to hold at the quantum level in presence of a background classical gravitational field with non-trivial dynamics, as determined by the Chern-Pontryagin scalar. This is the spin 1 analog of the chiral anomaly for massless Dirac fermions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2411.11792,
title = {Electric-magnetic duality in the quantum theory},
author = {Adrian del Rio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.11792},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
Proceedings of the 15th Marcel Grossmann Meeting, 1461-1466 (2022)