Related papers: Equivalence and Duality in Electromagnetism
This thesis discusses various aspects of duality in quantum field theory and string theory. In the first part we consider duality in topological quantum field theories, concentrating on the Donaldson and Seiberg-Witten theories as (dual)…
We discuss dyons, charge quantization and electric-magnetic duality for self-interacting, abelian, p-form theories in the spacetime dimensions D=2(p+1) where dyons can be present. The corresponding quantization conditions and duality…
Following a suggestion by Vafa, we present a quantum-mechanical model for S-duality symmetries observed in the quantum theories of fields, strings and branes. Our formalism may be understood as the topological limit of Berezin's metric…
We investigate high and low energy implications of a gauge dual description of the Standard Model. The high energy electric theory features gauge dynamics involving only fermionic matter fields, while the low energy magnetic description…
In these lectures I shall explain how a new-found nonabelian duality can be used to solve some outstanding questions in particle physics. The first lecture introduces the concept of electromagnetic duality and goes on to present its…
In a simple PT-symmetric model we demonstrate that and how the violation of a reflection symmetry $E_j=-E_{N+1-j}$ of the spectrum (called "self-duality" by Dunne and Shifman) is connected with the loss of the simplicity of the shape of the…
We identify a class of point-particle models that exhibit a target-space duality. This duality arises from a construction based on supersymmetric quantum mechanics with a non-vanishing central charge. Motivated by analogies to string…
In this paper we investigate how electromagnetic duality survives derivative corrections to classical non-linear electrodynamics. In particular, we establish that electromagnetic selfduality is satisfied to all orders in $\alpha'$ for the…
In the reduced phase space of electromagnetism, the generator of duality rotations in the usual Poisson bracket is shown to generate Maxwell's equations in a second, much simpler Poisson bracket. This gives rise to a hierarchy of…
Duality transformations with respect to rotational isometries relate supersymmetric with non-supersymmetric backgrounds in string theory. We find that non-local world-sheet effects have to be taken into account in order to restore…
Invariance in duality transformation, the self-dual property, has important applications in electromagnetic engineering. In the present paper, the problem of most general linear and local boundary conditions with self-dual property is…
This paper explores the options available to the anti-realist to defend a Quinean empirical under-determination thesis using examples of dualities. I first explicate a version of the empirical under-determination thesis that can be brought…
The quantum mechanical wave-particle dualism is analyzed and criticized, in the framework of Reichenbach's concepts of phenomenon and interphenomenon. It is suggested that the dual pictures be de-emphasized in the study of quantum theory,…
We discuss under what conditions the duality between electric and magnetic fields is a valid symmetry of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics. It is shown that Maxwell's equations in the absence of free charges satisfy duality invariance on…
Duality symmetries in supergravity theories, together with their implications for string theory, are reviewed.
The duality relation between the electric and magnetic fields, in the presence of an additional axion-like field, is considered. We derive the new equations that describe the electrodynamics in this model, and we discuss the implications…
A standard line in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that physical theories are equivalent only when they agree on their empirical content, where this empirical content is often understood as being encoded in the equations of…
This presentation is intended to give a flavour of the physics to be studied and discovered by exploiting the interface between string theory, M-theory and field theory provided by the dynamics of extended objects called `branes', and their…
Recently we have obtained a non-perturbative but convergent series expression of the one loop effective action of QED, and discussed the renormalization of the effective action. In this paper we establish the electric-magnetic duality in…
We discuss some aspects of the relation between dualities and gauge symmetries. Both of these ideas are of course multi-faceted, and we confine ourselves to making two points. Both points are about dualities in string theory, and both have…