Spatial contraction of the Poincaré group and Maxwell's equations in the electric limit

DOI10.1016/J.AOP.2010.01.006zbMATH Open1211.78008arXiv1001.4819OpenAlexW2135893799MaRDI QIDQ972515FDOQ972515

Authors: B. E. Eshmatov 

Publication date: 19 May 2010

Published in: Annals of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The contraction of the Poincare group with respect to the space trans- lations subgroup gives rise to a group that bears a certain duality relation to the Galilei group, that is, the contraction limit of the Poincare group with respect to the time translations subgroup. In view of this duality, we call the former the dual Galilei group. A rather remarkable feature of the dual Galilei group is that the time translations constitute a central subgroup. Therewith, in unitary irreducible representations (UIR) of the group, the Hamiltonian appears as a Casimir operator proportional to the identity H = EI, with E (and a spin value s) uniquely characterizing the representation. Hence, a physical system characterized by a UIR of the dual Galilei group displays no non-trivial time evolution. Moreover, the combined U(1) gauge group and the dual Galilei group underlie a non- relativistic limit of Maxwell's equations known as the electric limit. The analysis presented here shows that only electrostatics is possible for the electric limit, wholly in harmony with the trivial nature of time evolution governed by the dual Galilei group.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1001.4819

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zbMATH Keywords

Maxwell's equationsGalilei groupelectric limitPoincaré group

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Electromagnetic theory (general) (78A25)

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Cited In (4)

• Unitary cocycle representations of the Galilean line group: quantum mechanical principle of equivalence
• Group contractions: Inonu, Wigner, and Einstein
• Contractions of the Maxwell algebra
• Perturbations of unitary representations of the Galilei group: mass operators with continuous spectra

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