The New Charged Massless States of Quantum Electrodynamics

Abstract

Quantum Electrodynamics can be formulated as the theory of an antisymmetric tensor gauge field. In this formulation the topological current of this field appears as an additional source for the electromagnetic field. The topological charge therefore acts physically as an electric charge. The topologically nontrivial, electrically charged sector contains massless quantum states orthogonal to the vacuum in spite of the absence of classical topological solutions. These states are created by a gauge invariant local operator and can be interpreted as coherent states of photons. The obtainment of a quantity like charge, which is usually associated with matter, as a property of some peculiar states of the gauge field points towards the possibility of describing both the matter and the fields which mediate its interactions within the same unified framework.