Large gauge transformations and the strong CP problem

Dougherty, John

doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2019.09.001

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…The chiral anomaly doesn't vanish, but this isn't a problem. The derivation in Section 2 required the Weyl anomaly to vanish, but a vanishing chiral anomaly would lead to empirical inadequacy (Dougherty, 2020). For example, neutral pions decay to photons at a rate proportional to the chiral anomaly.…”

Section: Anomalous Global Symmetries In Field Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Substantial Role of Weyl Symmetry in Deriving General Relativity from String Theory

Dougherty¹

2021

Philos. of Sci.

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String theory reduces to general relativity in appropriate regimes. Huggett and Vistarini have given an account of this reduction that includes a deflationary thesis about symmetry: though the usual derivation of general relativity from string theory appeals to a premise about the theory's symmetry, Huggett and Vistarini argue that this premise plays no logical role. In this paper I disagree with their deflationary thesis and argue that their analysis is based on a popular but flawed conception of the interaction between symmetry and quantization. On this conception, quantization can break symmetries of the classical theory, and we must decide whether these symmetries should be reimposed. I argue that a better conception recognizes a tripartite distinction between ordinary, broken, and anomalous symmetries.

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Section: Anomalous Global Symmetries In Field Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Substantial Role of Weyl Symmetry in Deriving General Relativity from String Theory

Dougherty¹

2021

Philos. of Sci.

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“…In a recent paper, Dougherty (2019) engages with the details of Healey (2007)'s eliminativist program in the context of QCD. Dougherty's first aim is to convince the reader that a θ YM -term in the QCD Lagrangian is mandatory.…”

Section: The θ Ym -Termmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Dougherty (2019) (cf p.1, 7, 8, 16) the underlying reason for Healey's elimination of the θ YM -term is that such a term is only gauge-invariant under gauge transformations that have a particular behaviour at infinity (or at the relevant boundaries). The idea then is that the non-eliminativist would be comfortable in separating the wheat from the chaff, for they could say: "some 'gauge transformations' relate distinct physical possibilities while others don't.…”

Section: Dougherty's Criticismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large gauge transformations, gauge invariance, and the QCD $θ_{\text{YM}}$-term

Gomes,

Riello

2020

Preprint

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The eliminative view of gauge degrees of freedom-the view that they arise solely from descriptive redundancy and are therefore eliminable from the theoryis a lively topic of debate in the philosophy of physics. Recent work attempts to leverage properties of the QCD θ YM -term to provide a novel argument against the eliminative view. The argument is based on the claim that the QCD θ YM -term changes under "large" gauge transformations. Here we review geometrical propositions about fiber bundles that unequivocally falsify these claims: the θ YM -term encodes topological features of the fiber bundle used to represent gauge degrees of freedom, but it is fully gauge-invariant. Nonetheless, within the essentially classical viewpoint pursued here, the physical role of the θ YM -term shows the physical importance of bundle topology (or superpositions thereof) and thus weighs against (a naive) eliminativism.

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“…It is worth mentioning thatBrading and Brown (2004) andHealey (2009) also offer arguments with the purpose of defending the conventional wisdom, but for the sake of space, I will restrict this particular discussion to the debates between Greaves, Wallace and Teh, on the one hand, and Friederich, on the other (for a recent argument against the conventional wisdom from the perspective of the Standard Model, seeDougherty (2019)). …”

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confidence: 99%

A Puzzle Concerning Local Symmetries and Their Empirical Significance

Ramírez¹

2022

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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In the last five years, the controversy about whether or not gauge transformations can be empirically significant has intensified. On the one hand, Greaves and Wallace (2014) developed a framework according to which, under some circumstances, gauge transformations can be empirically significant, and Teh (2015) further supported this result by using the Constrained Hamiltonian formalism. On the other hand, Friederich (2015, 2016) claims to have proved that gauge transformation can never be empirically significant. In this paper, I accomplish two tasks: first, I show that Friederich's proof is not valid, and that once it is corrected, it entails a result that is compatible with the treatments by Greaves, Wallace, and Teh. Second, I show that, despite criticism by Brading and Brown (2004) and Friederich (2015), t'Hooft's Beam-Splitter experiment is indeed a concrete realization of a case where a local gauge symmetry has empirical significance. By shedding light on these two points, this paper shows that recent arguments that claim gauge transformations cannot be empirically significant are not satisfactory.

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Large gauge transformations and the strong CP problem

Cited by 6 publications

References 42 publications

The Substantial Role of Weyl Symmetry in Deriving General Relativity from String Theory

The Substantial Role of Weyl Symmetry in Deriving General Relativity from String Theory

Large gauge transformations, gauge invariance, and the QCD $θ_{\text{YM}}$-term

A Puzzle Concerning Local Symmetries and Their Empirical Significance

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