Mode Analysis and Duality Symmetry in Different Dimensions

The problem of duality symmetry in free field models is examined in details by performing a mode expansion of these fields which provides a mapping with the purely quantum mechanical example of a harmonic oscillator. By analysing the duality symmetry in the harmonic oscillator, we show that the massless scalar theory in two dimensions display, along with the expected discrete $Z_2$ symmetry, the continuous SO(2) symmetry as well. The same holds for the free Maxwell theory in four dimensions, which is usually regarded to manifest only the SO(2) symmetry. This leads to the new result that, following a proper interpretation, the duality groups in two and four dimensions become identical. Incidentally, duality in quantum mechanics is generally not covered in the literature that considers only $D=4k$ or $D=4k+2$ spacetime dimensions, for integral $k$.