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On the Reality of Gauge Potentials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Richard Healey
Richard Healey*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721–0027; email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Classically, a gauge potential was merely a convenient device for generating a corresponding gauge field. Quantum-mechanically, a gauge potential lays claim to independent status as a further feature of the physical situation. But whether this is a local or a global feature is not made any clearer by the variety of mathematical structures used to represent it. I argue that in the theory of electromagnetism (or a non-Abelian generalization) that describes quantum particles subject to a classical interaction, the gauge potential is best understood as a feature of the physical situation whose global character is most naturally represented by the holonomies of closed curves in space-time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , December 2001 , pp. 432 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

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Footnotes

‡

I thank Frank Arntzenius, Jeff Barrett, Jenann Ismael, Steven Leeds, David Malament, Tim Maudlin, Paul Teller; several referees for Philosophy of Science; and especially Harvey Brown, who introduced me to the work of Jeeva Anandan.

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