{"paper":{"title":"What is electric charge?: Charge as a local observable in relativistic quantum field theory","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"quant-ph","authors_text":"Hideyasu Yamashita","submitted_at":"2026-08-01T06:17:27Z","abstract_excerpt":"It is rather surprising that modern quantum physics does not appear to have provided any clear answer to the simple question ``what is electric charge?''. Even when the total charge operator $Q$ is well-defined, the non-locality of $Q$ implies that it is not an observable in the usual sense, which can be measured by a (local) experimental apparatus. A candidate for the ``local version'' of charge operator is the 4-current operator $j=(j^{\\mu})_{\\mu=0,1,2,3}$. However, it is known that the rigorous definition of $j$ is difficult in $(3+1)$-dimensional Minkowski space. Although it was found that"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2608.00468","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2608.00468/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}