On the dimensional dependence of the electromagnetic duality groups

We study the two-fold dimensional dependence of the electromagnetic duality groups. We introduce the dual projection operation that systematically discloses the presence of an internal space of potentials where the group operation is defined. A two-fold property of the kernel in the projection is shown to define the dimensional dependence of the duality groups. The dual projection is then generalized to reveal another hidden two-dimensional structure. The new unifying concept of the external duality space remove the dimensional dependence of the kernel, allowing the presence of both $Z_2$ and SO(2) duality groups in all even dimensions. This result, ultimately unifies the notion of selfduality to all D=2k+2 dimensions. Finally, we show the presence of an unexpected duality between the internal and external spaces leading to a duality of the duality groups.Comment: RevTex, 6 pages, Accepted for publication Phys. Rev.

A remark on the gauging of chiral bosons

We study the interacting chiral boson and observe that a naive gauging procedure leaves the covariant chiral constraint incompatible with the field equations. Consistency, therefore, rules out most gauging schemes: in a left chiral scalar, only the coupling with the left chiral currents leads to consistent results, in discordance with current literature.Comment: LATEX file, severely revised version, LATEX, 18 page

Soldering Chiralities II: Non-Abelian Case

We study the non-abelian extension of the soldering process of two chiral WZW models of opposite chiralities, resulting in a (non-chiral) WZW model living in a 2D space-time with non trivial Riemanian curvature.Comment: Latex file, 8 page

Topological Mass Generation as an Interference Phenomenon

It is proposed a new mechanism for the phenomenon of topological mass generation in three spacetime dimensions as the result of the interference of two opposite massless chiral modes. This mechanism, already used to produce the massive vectorial mode of the 2D Schwinger model, is here exploited to produce the gauge invariant massive mode of the Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory. Moreover the procedure is clearly dimensionally independent: a new chiral boson action is proposed for odd and even dimensional space-times to be used as the basic building blocks of the interference schemes. This is a new result that extends the two-dimensional Floreanini-Jackiw action to higher dimensional spaces and is in clear contrast with the twice odd dimensional chiral form extensions.Comment: 14 pages, latex, no figure

On condensation of topological defects and confinement

We study the static quantum potential for a theory of anti-symmetric tensor fields that results from the condensation of topological defects, within the framework of the gauge-invariant but path-dependent variables formalism. Our calculations show that the interaction energy is the sum of a Yukawa and a linear potentials, leading to the confinement of static probe charges.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, no figures. One of us (PG) would like to dedicate this work to the memory of Jian-Jun Yang; a mispelling of a quoted author is correcte

Physical and mathematical evidences for a negative-rank tensor

We propose and study the properties of a new potential demanded by the self-consistency of the duality scheme in electromagnetic-like field theories of totally anti-symmetric tensors in diverse dimensions. Physical implications of this new potential is manifest under the presence of scalar condensates in the Julia-Toulouse mechanism for the nucleation of topological defects with consequences for the confinement phenomenon.Comment: 7 page

Interference of Spin-2 Self-Dual Modes

We study the effects of interference between the self-dual and anti self-dual massive modes of the linearized Einstein-Chern-Simons topological gravity. The dual models to be used in the interference process are carefully analyzed with special emphasis on their propagating spectrum. We identify the opposite dual aspects, necessary for the application of the interference formalism on this model. The soldered theory so obtained displays explicitly massive modes of the Proca type. It may also be written in a form of Polyakov-Weigman identity to a better appreciation of its physical contents.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

3D and 4D noncommutative electromagnetic duality and the role of the slowly varying fields limit

We study classical noncommutative (NC) electromagnetic duality in both 3D and 4D space-times through the Seiberg-Witten (SW) map to all orders in theta. We evaluate the role of space-time dimensions, of the gauge coupling constant g^2 inversion, of the slowly varying fields (SVF) limit and of the rule theta --> g^2 *theta (where * is the Hodge duality operator), which was originally found in the 4D space-time. Among our results, a new scalar picture for NC electromagnetism to second order in theta is established, a formula which simplifies considerably the application of the SW map in 3D is presented and we show that the SVF limit has a crucial role in this duality starting from the third order in theta for any dimension: outside this limit the symmetry between theta and g^2 *theta is lost.Comment: 10 pages, PoS style, Fifth International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Physic

Chiral Decomposition For Non-Abelian Bosons

We study the non-abelian extension for the splitting of a scalar field into chiral components. Using this procedure we find a non ambiguous way of coupling a non abelian chiral scalar field to gravity. We start with a (non-chiral) WZW model covariantly coupled to a background metric and, after the splitting, arrive at two chiral Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) models coupled to gravity.Comment: 10 pages, LATE

Interference Phenomenon for Different Chiral Bosonization Schemes

We study, in the framework put forward by Siegel\cite{WS} and by Floreanini and Jackiw\cite{FJ} (FJ), the relationship between different chiral bosonization schemes (CBS). This is done in the context of the soldering formalism\cite{MS}, that considers the phenomenon of interference in the quantum field theory\cite{ABW}. We propose a field redefinition that discloses the presence of a noton, a nonmover field, in Siegel's formulation for chiral bosons. The presence of a noton in the Siegel CBS is a new and surprising result, that separates dynamics from symmetry. While the FJ component describes the dynamics, it is the noton that carries the symmetry contents, acquiring dynamics upon quantization and is fully responsible for the Siegel anomaly. The diagonal representation proposed here is used to study the effect of quantum interference between gauged rightons and leftons.Comment: Revtex, twocolumn, minor changes, to appear as Rapid Communication-PRD/Nov/9