English

Magnetic Charge and Photon Mass: Physical String Singularities, Dirac Condition, and Magnetic Confinement

General Physics 2018-04-25 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We find exact, simple solutions to the Proca version of Maxwell's equations with magnetic sources. Several properties of these solutions differ from the usual case of magnetic charge with a massless photon: (i) the string singularities of the usual 3-vector potentials become real singularities in the magnetic fields; (ii) the different 3-vector potentials become gauge inequivalent and physically distinct solutions; (iii) the magnetic field depends on rr and θ\theta and thus is no longer rotationally symmetric; (iv) a combined system of electric and magnetic charge carries a field angular momentum even when the electric and magnetic charges are located at the same place i.e. for dyons); (v) for these dyons one recovers the standard Dirac condition despite the photon being massive. We discuss the reason for this. We conclude by proposing that the string singularity in the magnetic field of an {\it isolated} magnetic charge suggests a confinement mechanism for magnetic charge, similar to the flux tube confinement of quarks in QCD.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.06229,
  title  = {Magnetic Charge and Photon Mass: Physical String Singularities, Dirac Condition, and Magnetic Confinement},
  author = {Timothy J. Evans and Douglas Singleton},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.06229},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

6 pages two-column revtex, no figures, updated references, title & abstract changed, some calculations corrected. To be published in IJMPA

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:19:34.486Z