Questions tagged [duality]
267 questions
76
votes
12 answers
Is the wave-particle duality a real duality?
I often hear about the wave-particle duality, and how particles exhibit properties of both particles and waves. However, I wonder, is this actually a duality? At the most fundamental level, we 'know' that everything is made up out of particles,…
user14445
- 1,511
- 5
- 17
- 25
49
votes
6 answers
Why do lasers cut? Is this a case of light acting as matter?
All I found in Google was very broad. From a physics models perspective, why can photons emitted from a laser cut? Does this cut mean that the photons are acting like matter?
sites
- 601
43
votes
2 answers
What's the intuition behind the Choi-Jamiolkowski isomorphism?
What is the intuition behind the Choi-Jamiolkowski isomorphism? It says that with every superoperator $\mathcal{E}$ we can associate a state given by a density matrix
$$ J(\mathcal{E}) = (\mathcal{E} \otimes \mathbb I) (\sigma)$$
where $\sigma =…
Spine Feast
- 2,895
29
votes
2 answers
Confusion about duality transformation in 1+1D Ising model in a transverse field
In 1+1D Ising model with a transverse field defined by the Hamiltonian
\begin{equation}
H(J,h)=-J\sum_i\sigma^z_i\sigma_{i+1}^z-h\sum_i\sigma_i^x
\end{equation}
There is a duality transformation which defines new Pauli operators $\mu^x_i$ and…
Mr. Gentleman
- 1,606
25
votes
1 answer
"S-duality" between confinement and the Higgs mechanism?
I feel picked by the second to last sentence in this answer to a question about what would happen if EM and QCD were spontaneously broken, which says
"In fact, there is a sense in theoretical physics in which confinement is complementary to…
Dilaton
- 9,771
21
votes
5 answers
Is quantum mechanics intrinsically dualistic?
In just about every interpretation of quantum mechanics, there appears to be some form of dualism. Is this inevitable or not?
In the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation by Bohr and Heisenberg, the world is split into a quantum and classical part.…
Sebastian
- 227
19
votes
4 answers
What is intuitively the Hodge dual of a $p$-form?
Carroll in his textbook "Spacetime and geometry" defines the Hodge dual of a $p$-form $A$ on an $n$-dimensional manifold as $$(\star A)_{\mu_1...\mu_{n-p}}=\dfrac{1}{p!}\epsilon^{\nu_1...\nu_p} _{\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \…
TheQuantumMan
- 8,020
19
votes
3 answers
Paper listing known Seiberg-dual pairs of ${\cal N}=1$ gauge theories
Is there a nice list of known Seiberg-dual pairs somewhere? There are so many papers from the middle 1990s but I do not find comprehensive review. Could you suggest a reference?
Seiberg's original paper is this Inspire entry and its cited by these…
Yuji
- 3,682
18
votes
2 answers
Compact or non-compact boson from bosonization?
In some discussions of bosonization, it is stressed that the duality between free bosons and free fermions requires the use of a compact boson. For example, in a review article by Senechal, the following statement is made:
In order for bosonization…
Zack
- 3,166
17
votes
5 answers
Making symmetry between $E$ and $B$ fields manifest in Lagrangian
Maxwell's equations are nearly symmetric between $E$ and $B$. If we add magnetic monopoles, or of course if we restrict ourselves to the sourceless case, then this symmetry is exact. This is not just a discrete symmetry of exchange. A "duality…
wnoise
- 794
15
votes
1 answer
Realization of: CFT generating function = AdS partition function
An important aspect of the AdS/CFT correspondence is the recipe to compute correlation functions of a boundary operator $\mathcal{O} $ in terms of the supergravity fields in the interior of the $AdS_{n+1}$ (as we approach the boundary). Namely,…
physics
13
votes
1 answer
Local Fermionic Symmetry
That is perhaps a bit of an advertisement, but a couple of collaborators and myself just sent out a paper, and one of the results there is a little bit surprising. We found (in section 6E) a fermionic local symmetry which closes to a tensor gauge…
user566
13
votes
1 answer
Effect of introducing magnetic charge on use of vector potential
It is well known that Maxwell equations can be made symmetric w.r.t. $E$ and $B$ by introducing non-zero magnetic charge density/flux.
In this case we have $div B = \rho_m$, where $\rho_m$ is a magnetic charge density.
But this means that $B$ cannot…
Murod Abdukhakimov
- 2,435
12
votes
3 answers
Chirality of the Electromagnetic Field Tensor
I have learned that chirality is a concept, that appears for $(A,B)$ representations of the Lorentz group, where $A\neq B$.
An example would be a Dirac spinor, corresponding to the representation $(\tfrac{1}{2},0)\oplus(0,\tfrac{1}{2})$, where we…
ersbygre1
- 2,740
12
votes
0 answers
How does one actually apply the M-theory/heterotic duality "fiberwise"?
It seems to be generally accepted ([1], [2]) that one can apply the duality between a $T^3$ compactification of heterotic string theory and a $\mathrm{K3}$ compactification of M-theory "fiberwise" to dualize a heterotic compactification on a…
ACuriousMind
- 132,081