Physical angular momentum separation for QED

DOI10.1142/S0217732317500638MaRDI QIDQ5738097zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Wei-Min Sun

Publication date 31 May 2017

Published in Modern Physics Letters A (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.05656

zbMATH Keywords

angular momentumEuclidean symmetrygauge-invariant extension

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Electromagnetic interaction; quantum electrodynamics (81V10)

Abstract: We study the non-uniqueness problem of the gauge-invariant angular momentum separation for the case of QED, which stems from the recent controversy concerning the proper definitions of the orbital angular momentum and spin operator of the individual parts of a gauge field system. For the free quantum electrodynamics without matter, we show that the basic requirement of Euclidean symmetry selects a unique physical angular momentum separation scheme from the multitude of the possible angular momentum separation schemes constructed using the various Gauge Invariant Extentions. Based on these results, we propose a set of natural angular momentum separation schemes for the case of interacting QED by invoking the formalism of asymptotic fields. Some perspectives on such a problem for the case of QCD are briefly discussed.

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Cites work

• An introduction to non-perturbative foundations of quantum field theory
• Is gauge-invariant complete decomposition of the nucleon spin possible?

Cited in

(4)

• Electromagnetic angular momentum of the electron: one-loop studies
• Angular momentum of the electron: one-loop studies
• Quantum gauge transformation, gauge-invariant extension and angular momentum decomposition in abelian Higgs model
• Contribution of electromagnetic field to atomic spin

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