Polarisability and magnetisation of electrically $K$-mouflaged objects: the Born-Infeld ModMax case study

TL;DR

This paper investigates a family of duality-invariant nonlinear electromagnetism theories interpolating between Born-Infeld and ModMax, analyzing their static perturbations, response to external fields, and underlying supersymmetric quantum structure.

Contribution

It introduces a unified framework for Born-Infeld and ModMax theories, analyzing perturbations, response functions, and ladder structures, revealing unique properties of Born-Infeld in this context.

Findings

Born-Infeld theory uniquely has vanishing susceptibility for even multipoles.

Polarisability for odd multipoles vanishes in the studied models.

Perturbation equations can be mapped to supersymmetric quantum mechanics with hyperbolic P"osch-Teller potentials.

Abstract

We consider a family of non-linear theories of electromagnetism that interpolate between Born-Infeld at small distances and ModMax at large distances. These models are duality invariant and feature a $K-$mouflage screening in the Born-Infeld regime. We focus on computing the static perturbations around a point-like screened charge in terms of two decoupled scalar potentials describing the polar and the axial sectors respectively. Duality invariance imposes that the propagation speed of the odd perturbations goes to zero as fast as the effective screened charge of the object, potentially leading to strong coupling and an obstruction to the viability of the EFT below the screened radius. We then consider the linear response to external fields and compute the electric polarisability and the magnetic susceptibility. Imposing regularity of the perturbations at the position of the particle, we find that the polarisability for the odd multipoles vanishes whilst for the magnetisation Born-Infeld emerges as the only theory with vanishing susceptibility for even multipoles. The perturbation equations factorise in terms of ladder operators connecting different multipoles. There are two such ladder structures for the even sector: one that acts as an automorphism between the first four multipoles and another one that connects multipoles separated by four units. When requiring a similar ladder structure for the odd sector, Born-Infeld arises again as the unique theory. We use this ladder structure to relate the vanishing of the polarisability and the susceptibility to the values of conserved charges. Finally the perturbation equations correspond to a supersymmetric quantum mechanical system such that the polar sector can be described in terms of Schr\"odinger's equations with four generalised hyperbolic P\"osch-Teller potentials whose eigenfunctions are in correspondence with the multipoles.