Quantum electrodynamics in an external constant field

view Abstract Citations (753) References (12) Co-Reads Similar Papers Volume Content Graphics Metrics Export Citation NASA/ADS Does the missing mass problem signal the breakdown of Newtonian gravity? Bekenstein, J. ; Milgrom, M. Abstract A nonrelativistic potential theory for gravity is considered which differs from the Newtonian theory. The theory is built on the basic assumptions of the modified dynamics, which were shown earlier to reproduce dynamical properties of galaxies and galaxy aggregates without having to assume the existence of hidden mass. The theory involves a modification of the Poisson equation and can be derived from a Lagrangian. The total momentum, angular momentum, and (properly defined) energy of an isolated system are conserved. The center-of-mass acceleration of an arbitrary bound system in a constant external gravitational field is independent of any property of the system. In other words, all isolated objects fall in exactly the same way in a constant external gravitational field (the weak equivalence principle is satisfied). However, the internal dynamics of a system in a constant external field is different from that of the same system in the absence of the external field, in violation of the strong principle of equivalence. These two results are consistent with the phenomenological requirements of the modified dynamics. A toy relativistic theory is sketched which has a nonrelativistic limit satisfying the requirements of the modified dynamics. Publication: The Astrophysical Journal Pub Date: November 1984 DOI: 10.1086/162570 Bibcode: 1984ApJ...286....7B Keywords: Galactic Rotation; Gravitation Theory; Mass Distribution; Missing Mass (Astrophysics); Newton Theory; Nonrelativistic Mechanics; Potential Theory; Computational Astrophysics; Cosmology; Equivalence; Poisson Equation; Astrophysics full text sources ADS |

The exact solution for the chiral field superpropagator in a constant external Abelian field is given.

We find dispersion laws for the photon propagating in the presence of mutually orthogonal constant external electric and magnetic fields in the context of the $\theta $-expanded noncommutative QED. We show that there is no birefringence to the first order in the noncommutativity parameter $% \theta .$ By analyzing the group velocities of the photon eigenmodes we show that there occurs superluminal propagation for any direction. This phenomenon depends on the mutual orientation of the external electromagnetic fields and the noncommutativity vector. We argue that the propagation of signals with superluminal group velocity violates causality in spite of the fact that the noncommutative theory is not Lorentz-invariant and speculate about possible workarounds.

The charging of a metal sphere in a weakly ionized collisional plasma in a uniform external electric field is investigated with allowance for the effect of the space charge field and ionization-recombination processes. The sphere charge and the spatial distributions of charged plasma particles are calculated both numerically and analytically (for some particular cases) for the case of a strong external field. It is found that the size of the perturbed plasma region is determined by the external field and the intensity of recombination processes. It is shown that the total electric charge (the sphere charge plus the plasma space charge) is zero in accordance with predictions of the theory of static currents in a conducting medium.

This work explores the conditions that allow the injection and pinning of different magnetic domain walls (DWs) in Permalloy nanostripes with notches of different shapes. The injection is done under a constant external field by applying a 10 ns current pulse through an adjacent current line. The type of DW is identified by its anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). We find that, while a quasi-static pinning (nucleating at zero field and propagating the DW to the notch by slowly increasing the external field) would allow to distinguish different types of DWs pinned at the notch, a dynamic pinning (nucleating, propagating, and pinning the DW under a constant non-zero magnetic field) makes the discrimination of different DWs very difficult. Micromagnetic simulations indicate that the AMR of the different types of DWs become quite similar to each other as the injection field increases. This might explain why at large injection fields, usually only one or two values of resistance are detected, depending on the shape of the notch. Therefore, caution should be taken when establishing a one-to-one relationship between a type of DW and a value of resistance, especially if the injection is done under a non-zero external magnetic field.

The influence of a constant uniform external chromomagnetic field $H$ on the formation of color superconductivity has been investigated. The consideration was performed in the framework of a (2+1)-dimensional Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with two different four-fermionic structures responsible for $<\bar qq>$ and diquark $<qq>$ condensates. In particular, it was shown that there exists a critical value $H_c$ of the external chromomagnetic field such that at $H>H_c$ a nonvanishing diquark condensate is dynamically created (the so-called chromomagnetic catalysis effect of color superconductivity). Moreover, external chromomagnetic fields may in some cases enhance the diquark condensate of color superconductivity.

Massive scalar and spin 1/2 fields are considered on a two-dimensional space-time with constant background curvature and in the presence of an external constant field. For each case, the Euler–Heisenberg effective action and the pair creation rate and their dependence on both the curvature and external field is determined exactly.

We study exact solutions of Dirac and Klein–Gordon equations and Green functions in d-dimensional QED and in an external electromagnetic field with constant and homogeneous field invariants. The cases of even and odd dimensions are considered separately; they are essentially different. We direct attention to the asymmetry of the quasienergy spectrum, which appears in odd dimensions. The in and out classification of the exact solutions as well as the completeness and orthogonality relations is strictly proven. Different Green functions in the form of sums over the exact solutions are constructed. The Fock–Schwinger proper time integral representations of these Green functions are found. As physical applications, we consider the calculations of different quantum effects related to the vacuum instability in the external field. For example, we present mean values of particles created from the vacuum, the probability of the vacuum remaining a vacuum, the effective action, and the expectation values of the current and energy-momentum tensor.

Within the QCD sum-rule approach in an external field, we calculate the baryon matrix element of isovector-scalar current, $H_{\rm B}=\langle B|\overline{u}u- \overline{d}d|B\rangle/2M_{\rm B}$, for octet baryons, which appears in the response of the correlator of baryon interpolating fields to a constant isovector-scalar external field. The sum rules are obtained for a general baryon interpolating field with an appropriate form for the phenomenological ansatz of the spectral density. The key phenomenological input is the response of the quark condensates to the external field. To first order in the quark mass difference $\delta m=m_d-m_u$, the non-electromagnetic part of the baryon isospin mass splitting is given by the product of $\delta m$ and $H_{\rm B}$. Therefore, QCD sum-rule calculation of $H_{\rm B}$ leads to an estimate of the octet baryon isospin mass splittings. The resulting values are comparable to the experimental values; however, the sum-rule predictions for $H_{\rm B}$ are sensitive to the values of the response of the quark condensates to the external source, which are not well determined.

The transport properties of water through a nanochannel influenced by the direction of an external electric field has been investigated by using molecular dynamics simulations. Water molecules flow unidirectionally across the nanochannel under a uniform external electric field without an osmotic pressure. It is found that the direction of the external field plays an important role in the interactions and dipole orientations of water molecules in the nanochannel, accordingly changing the net water flux dramatically. Most importantly, a critical angle (θC) between the external field and the nanochannel axis is found. The average net water flux increases as θ increases for θ≤θC but decreases sharply to a near-zero value for a further increase of θ. The maximum value of the average net water flux is 7.33 times as high as the value when the electric field is along the nanochannel axis. Our findings are of great practical importance for nanomolecular engineering, which provide a possible strategy for designing novel controllable water nanopumps.

To investigate the dielectrophoretic motions of multiple particles, we have performed the so-called direct numerical simulations on two-dimensional flows involving inertialess dielectric particles of two to five suspended in a viscous fluid under a uniform external electric field and then compared the results with those of the corresponding magnetophoretic counterparts. For the simulations, the electric field (or the force acting on each particle) is described by the numerical solution of the Maxwell equation (or Gauss’s law), where the smoothed representation technique is employed to tackle the jump of electric conductivity across the particle-fluid interface. The flow field, on the other hand, is described by the solution of the continuity and momentum equations, where one-stage smoothed profile method is employed to satisfy the no-slip condition at the interface. In all the simulations, the particles are initially equi-spaced on a circle with an origin at the center while a uniform electric field is externally imposed. Results show that all particles move with repelling or attracting one another depending on the locally nonuniform electric field formed due to the presence of multiple particles. Consequently, they become clustered largely into two groups, then revolve in the clockwise or counterclockwise direction, and finally get aligned in a line with the field direction. One exception is their initial configuration which is symmetric with respect to the axis perpendicular to the electric-field direction, where all the particles move eternally far away from one another with keeping the symmetry. In addition, it is found that the two-dimensional relative motions of dielectric particles under a uniform external electric field are qualitatively in fairly exact agreement with those of paramagnetic particles suspended in a nonmagnetic fluid under a uniform external magnetic field.

By means of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics applied to coupled harmonic Drude oscillators, we study the interaction between two neutral atoms or molecules subject to a uniform static electric field. Our focus is to understand the interplay between leading contributions to field-induced electrostatics/polarization and dispersion interactions, as considered within the employed Drude model for both non-retarded and retarded regimes. For the first case, we present an exact solution for two coupled oscillators obtained by diagonalizing the corresponding quantum-mechanical Hamiltonian and demonstrate that the external field can control the strength of different intermolecular interactions and relative orientations of the molecules. In the retarded regime described by quantum electrodynamics, our analysis shows that field-induced electrostatic and polarization energies remain unchanged (in isotropic and homogeneous vacuum) compared to the non-retarded case. For interacting species modeled by quantum Drude oscillators, the developed framework based on quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics yields the leading contributions to molecular interactions under the combined action of external and vacuum fields.

We study the approximability of computing the partition function for ferromagnetic two-state spin systems. The remarkable algorithm by Jerrum and Sinclair showed that there is a fully polynomial-time randomized approximation scheme (FPRAS) for the special ferromagnetic Ising model with any given uniform external field. Later, Goldberg and Jerrum proved that it is #BIS-hard for Ising model if we allow inconsistent external fields on different nodes. In contrast to these two results, we prove that for any ferromagnetic two-state spin systems except the Ising model, there exists a threshold for external fields beyond which the problem is #BIS-hard, even if the external field is uniform.

The dynamical stability of disk galaxies is sensitive to whether their anomalous rotation curves are caused by dark matter halos or Milgromian dynamics (MOND). We investigate this by setting up a MOND model of M33. We first simulate it in isolation for 6 Gyr, starting from an initial good match to the rotation curve (RC). Too large a bar and bulge form when the gas is too hot, but this is avoided by reducing the gas temperature. A strong bar still forms in 1 Gyr, but rapidly weakens and becomes consistent with the observed weak bar. Previous work showed this to be challenging in Newtonian models with a live dark matter halo, which developed strong bars. The bar pattern speed implies a realistic corotation radius of 3 kpc. However, the RC still rises too steeply, and the central line-of-sight velocity dispersion (LOSVD) is too high. We then add a constant external acceleration field of 8.4 × 10−12 m s−2 at 30° to the disk as a first-order estimate for the gravity exerted by M31. This suppresses buildup of material at the center, causing the RC to rise more slowly and reducing the central LOSVD. Overall, this simulation bears good resemblance to several global properties of M33, and highlights the importance of including even a weak external field on the stability and evolution of disk galaxies. Further simulations with a time-varying external field, modeling the full orbit of M33, will be needed to confirm its resemblance to observations.

The interaction and the transformation of the electromagnetic and gravitational waves and the variation of those amplitudes are analyzed theoretically, where the Einstein-Maxwell field is assumed. Two waves are defined such that the electromagnetic vector potentials and the gravitational tensor potentials and their first derivatives are continuous while their second derivatives are discontinuous at a wave front. It is proved that the concomitant electromagnetic and gravitational waves can interact with each other if an external electromagnetic field exists. The global behaviors of interaction and transformation of the two concomitant waves are also investigated, where a Lorentz metric space-time is assumed. The variation formulas for amplitude are derived. The amplitudes may grow or decay according to a factor depending on the mean and Gaussian curvatures of an initial wave front and to a factor depending on the external electromagnetic field. When there is no external electromagnetic field, there is no interaction between the two waves and they propagate independently, while when an external field exists, the electromagnetic wave may transform into the gravitational wave and vice versa. In a case of a weak constant external electromagnetic field, where a flat space may be assumed, the amplitude of a wave varies sinusoidally with respect to the distance measured along its ray. The length of interchangeability is defined by the length in which a wave is completely transformed into its dual wave, and it is inversely proportional to the strength of an external electromagnetic field.