ARE THERE TOPOLOGICALLY CHARGED STATES ASSOCIATED WITH QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS?

Abstract

We present a generalization of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in terms of an antisymmetric tensor gauge field. In this formulation the topological current of this field appears as a source for the electromagnetic field and the topological charge therefore acts physically as an electric charge. The charged states of QED lie in the sector where the topological charge is identical to the matter charge. The antisymmetric field theory, however, admits new sectors where the topological charge is more general. These nontrivial, electrically charged sectors contain massless states orthogonal to the vacuum which are created by a gauge-invariant operator and can be interpreted as coherent states of photons. We evaluate the correlation functions of these states in the absence of matter. The new states have a positive definite norm and do interact with the charged states of QED in the usual way. It is argued that if these new sectors are in fact realized in nature, then a very intense background electromagnetic field is necessary for their experimental observation. The order of magnitude of the intensity threshold is estimated. The value of the quantum of charge is also obtained.