Dual symmetry breaking and magnetic charge screening
Abstract
We extend a Lagrangian formulation of dual electrodynamics by introducing electric and magnetic Higgs scalar fields. The scalars couple to Mandelstam nonlocal potentials which enter the electric and magnetic sectors. We consider the vacuum in which only the magnetic scalar has a nonzero expectation value. The generalised Maxwell equations remain local even though the scalar couplings are nonlocal. In this phase the local electric potential keeps a massless pole while the magnetic sector acquires a mass. The electric interaction is therefore Coulombian at large distances while the pole-pole and charge-pole interactions become short ranged. The magnetic charge is then screened in the sense of the Swieca theorem while the electric charge is not. The Dirac condition is inherited from the symmetric phase as a quantisation rule for the microscopic electric and magnetic couplings. We also comment on screened monopoles as possible dark sector degrees of freedom.
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BibTeX
@misc{carneiro2026dual,
title = {{Dual symmetry breaking and magnetic charge screening}},
author = {Saulo Carneiro},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.25324},
eprint = {2609.25324},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25324},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Dual symmetry breaking and magnetic charge screening
AU - Saulo Carneiro
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.25324
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25324
AB - We extend a Lagrangian formulation of dual electrodynamics by introducing electric and magnetic Higgs scalar fields. The scalars couple to Mandelstam nonlocal potentials which enter the electric and magnetic sectors. We consider the vacuum in which only the magnetic scalar has a nonzero expectation value. The generalised Maxwell equations remain local even though the scalar couplings are nonlocal. In this phase the local electric potential keeps a massless pole while the magnetic sector acquires a mass. The electric interaction is therefore Coulombian at large distances while the pole-pole and charge-pole interactions become short ranged. The magnetic charge is then screened in the sense of the Swieca theorem while the electric charge is not. The Dirac condition is inherited from the symmetric phase as a quantisation rule for the microscopic electric and magnetic couplings. We also comment on screened monopoles as possible dark sector degrees of freedom.
ER -