Isabel Garcia Garcia, U. Washington, [HET Seminar], "Dyon Loops and Abelian Instantons"

Thursday 1 May 2025, 11:00 → 12:00 US/Eastern

Small Seminar Room (https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1605506805?pwd=AA9rwL4hM5AwG2b0zEwDdXjzhvJjSz.1)

I will discuss field configurations of Abelian gauge fields that carry second Chern number, generated by closed monopole worldlines in four-dimensional Euclidean space. These are "Abelian Instantons" that ascribe physical significance of the electromagnetic vacuum angle. I will discuss the connection between these and traditional Yang-Mills instantons. Time permitting, I will speculate on the existence of Abelian instantons in the context of electromagnetism minimally coupled to gravity.