2017/11/30 by Yuta Hamada, Min-Seok Seo, Min‐Seok Seo +1 · 17 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Duality (order theory) #Gauge anomaly #Gauge symmetry #Gauge theory #Helicity #Introduction to gauge theory #Mathematics #Photon #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Scalar (mathematics) #Symmetry (geometry) #Theoretical physics #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep02(2018)046
published in Journal of High Energy Physics 2018(2), 46 (Springer Nature) · 16 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in JHEP
openalex publication_date 2018/02/01 · arxiv created 2018/02/06 · arxiv updated 2018/04/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study large gauge transformations for soft photons in quantum electrodynamics which, together with the helicity operator, form an ISO(2) algebra. We show that the two non-compact generators of the ISO(2) algebra correspond respectively to the residual gauge symmetry and its electromagnetic dual gauge symmetry that emerge at null infinity. The former is helicity universal (electric in nature) while the latter is helicity distinguishing (magnetic in nature). Thus, the conventional large gauge transformation is electric in nature, and is naturally associated with a scalar potential. We suggest that the electric Aharonov-Bohm effect is a direct measure for the electromagnetic memory arising from large gauge transformations.