Asymptotic structure of scalar-Maxwell theory at the null boundary

TL;DR

This paper investigates the asymptotic symmetries and conserved charges of scalar-Maxwell theory with a Pontryagin term at null infinity, revealing new symmetries and their relation to electric-magnetic duality, especially in the weak-coupling limit.

Contribution

It uncovers asymptotic shift symmetries in scalar-Maxwell theory with Pontryagin coupling and links these to electric-magnetic duality, extending previous results with a Hamiltonian approach.

Findings

Identifies asymptotic shift symmetries from zero modes of the symplectic matrix.

Shows these symmetries are related to electric-magnetic duality.

Finds that interactions simplify the asymptotic structure, decoupling scalar and Maxwell sectors.

Abstract

We apply the Hamiltonian formalism to investigate the massless sector of scalar field theory coupled with Maxwell electrodynamics through the Pontryagin term. Specifically, we analyze asymptotic symmetries at the null infinity of this theory, conserved charges, and their algebra. We find that the theory possesses asymptotic shift symmetries of the fields not present in the bulk manifold coming from the zero modes of the symplectic matrix of constraints. Consequently, we conclude that the real scalar field also contains asymptotic symmetries previously found in the literature by a different approach. We show that these symmetries are the origin of the electric-magnetic duality in electromagnetism with the topological Pontryagin term, and obtain non-trivial central extension between the electric and magnetic conserved charges. Finally, we examine the full interacting theory and find that, due to the interaction, the symmetry generators are more difficult to identify among the constraints, such that we obtain them in the weak-coupling limit. We find that the asymptotic structure of the theory simplifies due to a fast fall-off of the scalar field, leading to decoupled scalar and Maxwell asymptotic sectors, and losing the electric-magnetic duality.