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Magnetic charge as a “hidden” gauge symmetry

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Abstract

A theory containing both electric and magnetic charges is formulated using two vectors potentials,A μ andC μ. This has the aesthetic advantage of treating electric and magnetic charges both as gauge symmetries, but it has the experimental disadvantage of introducing a second massless gauge boson (the “magnetic” photon) which is not observed. This problem is dealt with by using the Higgs mechanism to give a mass to one of the gauge bosons while the other remains massless. This effectively “hides” the magnetic charge, and the symmetry associated with it, when one is at an energy scale far enough removed from the scale of the symmetry breaking.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Virginia, 22901, Charlottesville, Virginia

    D. Singleton

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  1. D. Singleton
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This paper is dedicated to my grandparents Herbert and Anneliese Schmidt.

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Singleton, D. Magnetic charge as a “hidden” gauge symmetry. Int J Theor Phys 34, 37–46 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00670985

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00670985

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