The Index of discontinuous Vector Fields: Topological Particles and Vector Fields
| dc.creator | Gottlieb, Daniel H. | |
| dc.creator | Samaranayake, Geetha | |
| dc.date | 1992-02-26 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T09:13:56Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T09:13:56Z | |
| dc.description | We define the concepts of topological particles and topological radiation. These are nothing more than connected components of defects of a vector field. To each topological particle we assign an index which is an integer which is conserved under interactions with other particles much as electric charge is conserved. For space-like vector fields of space-times this index is invariant under all coordinate transformations. We propose the following physical principal: For physical vector fields the index changes only when there is radiation. As an implication of this principal we predict that any physical psuedo-vector field has index zero. The definition of the index is quite elementary. It only depends upon the concepts of continuity, compactness, the Euler-Poincare number, and the idea of inward pointing. The proof that this definition is well defined takes up most of the paper. The paper concludes with a list of properties of the index. | |
| dc.description | 25 page | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9202088 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9202088 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/152501 | |
| dc.subject | High Energy Physics - Theory | |
| dc.subject | Geometric Topology | |
| dc.title | The Index of discontinuous Vector Fields: Topological Particles and Vector Fields | |
| dc.type | text |