Related papers: Equivalence and Duality in Electromagnetism
Theoretical equivalence and duality are two closely related notions: but their interconnection has so far not been well understood. In this paper I explicate the contribution of a recent schema for duality to discussions of theoretical…
The main aim of this paper is to make a remark about the relation between (i) dualities between theories, as `duality' is understood in physics and (ii) equivalence of theories, as `equivalence' is understood in logic and philosophy. The…
We present a new view for duality in classical electromagnetic theory, based on the physical properties of a dual theory, eliminating the problems of the usual treatment of the subject.
I review the philosophical literature on the question of when two physical theories are equivalent. This includes a discussion of empirical equivalence, which is often taken to be necessary, and sometimes taken to be sufficient, for…
By resolving the Riemann curvature relative to a unit timelike vector into electric and magnetic parts, we consider duality relations analogous to the electromagnetic theory. It turns out that the duality symmetry of the Einstein action…
We point out that the duality symmetry of free electromagnetism does not hold in the quantum theory if an arbitrary classical gravitational background is present. The symmetry breaks in the process of renormalization, as also happens with…
I argue that, on a judicious reading of two existing criteria--one syntactic and the other semantic--dual theories can be taken to be empirically equivalent. The judicious reading is straightforward, but leads to the surprising conclusion…
Duality is an indispensable tool for describing the strong-coupling dynamics of gauge theories. However, its actual realization is often quite subtle: quantities such as the partition function can transform covariantly, with degrees of…
In this paper a new look on the electro-magnetic duality is presented and appropriately exploited. The duality analysis in the nonrelativistic and relativistic formulations is shown to lead to the idea the mathematical model field to be a…
This talk, given at several conferences and meetings, explains the background leading to the formulation of the exact electromagnetic duality conjecture believed to be valid in N=4 supersymmetric SU(2) gauge theory.
Gauge theory, which is the basis of all particle physics, is itself based on a few fundamental concepts, the consequences of which are often as beautiful as they are deep. In this short lecture course I shall try to give an introduction to…
We briefly review the basics of electric-magnetic duality symmetry and their geometric interpretation in the M-theory context. Then we recall some no-go theorems that prevent a simple extension of the duality symmetry to non-Abelian gauge…
A recent concept in theoretical physics, motivated in string duality and M-theory, is the notion that not all quantum theories arise from quantising a classical system. Also, a given quantum model may possess more than just one classical…
Cosmological perturbation equations derived from low-energy effective actions are shown to be invariant under a duality transformation reminiscent of electric-magnetic, strong-weak coupling, S-duality. A manifestly duality-invariant…
A generalized view of Duality is offered as a bridge between physical sciences and the more abstract philosophical dimensions bordering on mysticism. To that end several examples of duality are first cited from from conventional physics…
We review electric/magnetic duality in $N=4$ (and certain $N=2$) globally supersymmetric gauge theories and show how this duality, which relates strong to weak coupling, follows as a consequence of a string/string duality. Black holes,…
We derive Maxwell equations for electric and magnetic fields in curved spacetime from first principles, relaxing an unnecessary assumption on the structure of the four-potential inherent to the standard approach and thus restoring the full…
We study in detail the space of perturbations of a pair of dual $N=1$ supersymmetric theories based on an $SU(N_c)$ gauge theory with an adjoint $X$ and fundamentals with a superpotential which is polynomial in $X$. The equivalence between…
We have examined quantum theories of electric magnetic duality invariant vector fields enjoying classical conformal invariance in 4-dimensional flat spacetime. We extend Dirac's argument about "the conditions for a quantum field theory to…
We describe the interplay between electric-magnetic duality and higher symmetry in Maxwell theory. When the fine-structure constant is rational, the theory admits non-invertible symmetries which can be realized as composites of…