Gauging kinematical and internal symmetry groups for extended systems: the Galilean one-time and two-times harmonic oscillators

Abstract

The possible external couplings of an extended non-relativistic classical system are characterized by gauging its maximal dynamical symmetry group at the center-of-mass. The Galilean one-time and two-times harmonic oscillators are exploited as models. The following remarkable results are then obtained: 1) a peculiar form of interaction of the system as a whole with the external gauge fields; 2) a modification of the dynamical part of the symmetry transformations, which is needed to take into account the alteration of the dynamics itself, induced by the {\it gauge} fields. In particular, the Yang-Mills fields associated to the internal rotations have the effect of modifying the time derivative of the internal variables in a scheme of minimal coupling (introduction of an internal covariant derivative); 3) given their dynamical effect, the Yang-Mills fields associated to the internal rotations apparently define a sort of Galilean spin connection, while the Yang-Mills fields associated to the quadrupole momentum and to the internal energy have the effect of introducing a sort of dynamically induced internal metric in the relative space.