Lorentz-Violating Electrostatics and Magnetostatics

The static limit of Lorentz-violating electrodynamics in vacuum and in media is investigated. Features of the general solutions include the need for unconventional boundary conditions and the mixing of electrostatic and magnetostatic effects. Explicit solutions are provided for some simple cases. Electromagnetostatics experiments show promise for improving existing sensitivities to parity-odd coefficients for Lorentz violation in the photon sector.Comment: 9 page

Coupling Right- and Left-Handed Photons Differently to Charged Matter

We consider a modification of electrodynamics in which right- and left-circularly polarized photons are coupled to charged sources differently. Even though photon helicity is a Lorentz invariant quantity, such a modification breaks Lorentz symmetry, as well as locality. The modified theory includes novel magnetic forces between perpendicular currents. Existing data can be used to constrain the modification at approximately a 2 x 10^(-3) level.Comment: 12 page

Lorentz-Violating Electromagnetostatics

In this talk, the stationary limit of Lorentz-violating electrodynamics is discussed. As illustrated by some simple examples, the general solution includes unconventional mixing of electrostatic and magnetostatic effects. I discuss a high-sensitivity null-type measurement, exploiting Lorentz-violating electromagnetostatic effects, that could improve existing limits on parity-odd coefficients for Lorentz violation in the photon sector.Comment: 6 pages, presented at the Third Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, Indiana, August 200

Lorentz-violating gravitoelectromagnetism

The well-known analogy between a special limit of General Relativity and electromagnetism is explored in the context of the Lorentz-violating Standard-Model Extension (SME). An analogy is developed for the minimal SME that connects a limit of the CPT-even component of the electromagnetic sector to the gravitational sector. We show that components of the post-newtonian metric can be directly obtained from solutions to the electromagnetic sector. The method is illustrated with specific examples including static and rotating sources. Some unconventional effects that arise for Lorentz-violating electrostatics and magnetostatics have an analog in Lorentz-violating post-newtonian gravity. In particular, we show that even for static sources, gravitomagnetic fields arise in the presence of Lorentz violation.Comment: 11 pages, 2 color figures, version accepted in Physical Review

Dimensional reduction of the CPT-even electromagnetic sector of the Standard Model Extension

The CPT-even abelian gauge sector of the Standard Model Extension is represented by the Maxwell term supplemented by $(K_{F})_{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}F^{\mu\nu}F^{\rho\sigma}$, where the Lorentz-violating background tensor, $(K_{F})_{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}$, possesses the symmetries of the Riemann tensor. In the present work, we examine the planar version of this theory, obtained by means of a typical dimensional reduction procedure to $(1+2)$ dimensions. The resulting planar electrodynamics is composed of a gauge sector containing six Lorentz-violating coefficients, a scalar field endowed with a noncanonical kinetic term, and a coupling term that links the scalar and gauge sectors. The dispersion relation is exactly determined, revealing that the six parameters related to the pure electromagnetic sector do not yield birefringence at any order. In this model, the birefringence may appear only as a second order effect associated with the coupling tensor linking the gauge and scalar sectors.The equations of motion are written and solved in the stationary regime. The Lorentz-violating parameters do not alter the asymptotic behavior of the fields but induce an angular dependence not observed in the Maxwell planar theory.Comment: 13 pages, revtex style, no figures, to appear in Physical Review D(2011

Classical Noncommutative Electrodynamics with External Source

In a $U(1)_{\star}$-noncommutative (NC) gauge field theory we extend the Seiberg-Witten (SW) map to include the (gauge-invariance-violating) external current and formulate - to the first order in the NC parameter - gauge-covariant classical field equations. We find solutions to these equations in the vacuum and in an external magnetic field, when the 4-current is a static electric charge of a finite size $a$, restricted from below by the elementary length. We impose extra boundary conditions, which we use to rule out all singularities, $1/r$ included, from the solutions. The static charge proves to be a magnetic dipole, with its magnetic moment being inversely proportional to its size $a$. The external magnetic field modifies the long-range Coulomb field and some electromagnetic form-factors. We also analyze the ambiguity in the SW map and show that at least to the order studied here it is equivalent to the ambiguity of adding a homogeneous solution to the current-conservation equation

Classical solutions for the Carroll-Field-Jackiw-Proca electrodynamics

In the present work, we investigate classical solutions of the Maxwell-Carroll-Field-Jackiw-Proca (MCFJP) electrodynamics for the cases a purely timelike and spacelike Lorentz-violating (LV) background. Starting from the MCFJP Lagrangian and the associated wave equations written for the potential four-vector, the tensor form of the Green function is achieved. In the timelike case, the components of the stationary Green function are explicitly written. The classical solutions for the electric and magnetic field strengths are then evaluated, being observed that the electric sector is not modified by the LV background, keeping the Maxwell-Proca behavior. The magnetic field associated with a charge in uniform motion presents an oscillating behavior that also provides an oscillating MCFJ solution (in the limit of a vanishing Proca mass), but does not recover the Maxwell-Proca solution in the limit of vanishing background. In the spacelike case, the stationary Green function is written and also explicitly carried out in the regime of a small background. The electric and magnetic fields reveal to possess an exponentially decaying behavior, that recover the Maxwell-Proca solutions.Comment: 14 rextex4 pages; 2 figures; minimal changes in abstract and introduction; added reference

Green's function approach to Chern-Simons extended electrodynamics: an effective theory describing topological insulators

Boundary effects produced by a Chern-Simons (CS) extension to electrodynamics are analyzed exploiting the Green's function (GF) method. We consider the electromagnetic field coupled to a $\theta$-term in a way that has been proposed to provide the correct low energy effective action for topological insulators (TI). We take the $\theta$-term to be piecewise constant in different regions of space separated by a common interface $\Sigma$, to be called the $\theta$-boundary. Features arising due to the presence of the boundary, such as magnetoelectric effects, are already known in CS extended electrodynamics and solutions for some experimental setups have been found with specific configuration of sources. In this work we illustrate a method to construct the GF that allows to solve the CS modified field equations for a given $\theta$-boundary with otherwise arbitrary configuration of sources. The method is illustrated by solving the case of a planar $\theta$-boundary but can also be applied for cylindrical and spherical geometries for which the $\theta$-boundary can be characterized by a surface where a given coordinate remains constant. The static fields of a point-like charge interacting with a planar TI, as described by a planar discontinuity in $\theta$, are calculated and successfully compared with previously reported results. We also compute the force between the charge and the $\theta$-boundary by two different methods, using the energy momentum tensor approach and the interaction energy calculated via the GF. The infinitely straight current-carrying wire is also analyzed