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No U(1) 'electric-magnetic' duality in Einstein gravity

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arxiv 2312.02351 v2 pith:5M7GDKKG submitted 2023-12-04 hep-th gr-qc

No U(1) 'electric-magnetic' duality in Einstein gravity

classification hep-th gr-qc
keywords dualityamplitudesgeneralrelativitytheorychargeconservationelectric-magnetic
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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We revisit the question of whether classical general relativity obeys, beyond the linearised order, an analogue of the global U(1) electric-magnetic duality of Maxwell theory, with the Riemann tensor playing the role analogous to the field strength. Following contradictory claims in the literature, we present a simple gauge-invariant argument that the duality does not hold. The duality condition is the conservation of the helicity charge. Scattering amplitudes of gravitons in general relativity, and of gluons in Yang-Mills theory, violate this selection rule already at tree level. Indeed, the maximally-helicity-violating (MHV) amplitudes are famous for their simplicity. The duality in the linearised theories is, therefore, broken by the interactions. In contrast, the tree-level scattering amplitudes in duality-invariant theories of non-linear electromagnetism are known to obey helicity conservation. While the duality is not a symmetry of the full theory of general relativity, it does hold within a sector of the solution space, including vacuum type D solutions, where the duality is known to rotate between mass and NUT charge.

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Cited by 6 Pith papers

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