Are There Topologically Charged States Associated with Quantum Electrodynamics ?

TL;DR

This paper reformulates Quantum Electrodynamics using an antisymmetric tensor gauge field, revealing new topologically charged sectors with massless photon-like states that could be observed under intense electromagnetic backgrounds.

Contribution

It introduces a novel antisymmetric tensor gauge field formulation of QED, uncovering new topologically charged sectors with physical implications and potential experimental observability.

Findings

New sectors with topological charge and massless states identified

Correlation functions of these states evaluated without matter

Threshold electromagnetic field intensity estimated for detection

Abstract

We present a formulation of Quantum Electrodynamics in terms of an antisymmetric tensor gauge field. In this formulation the topological current of this field appears as a source for the electromagnetic field and the topological charge therefore acts physically as an electric charge. The charged states of QED lie in the sector where the topological charge is identical to the matter charge. The antisymmetric field theory, however, admits new sectors where the topological charge is more general. These nontrivial, electrically charged, sectors contain massless states orthogonal to the vacuum which are created by a gauge invariant operator and can be interpreted as coherent states of photons. We evaluate the correlation functions of these states in the absence of matter. The new states have a positive definite norm and do interact with the charged states of QED in the usual way. It is argued that if these new sectors are in fact realized in nature then a very intense background electromagnetic field is necessary for the experimental observation of them. The order of magnitude of the intensity threshold is estimated.