arXiv subjects

Eric Palmerduca

Publications and source records attributed to Eric Palmerduca.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Wave Topology in Hall MHD

Hall Magnetohydrodynamics (HMHD) extends ideal MHD by incorporating the Hall effect via the induction equation, making it more accurate for describing plasma behavior at length scales below the ion skin depth. Despite its importance, a comprehensive description of the eigenmodes in HMHD has been lacking. In this work, we derive the complete spectrum and eigenvectors of HMHD waves and identify their underlying topological structure. We prove that the HMHD wave spectrum is homotopic to that of ideal MHD, consisting of three distinct branches: the slow magnetosonic-Hall waves, the shear Alfv\'en-Hall waves, and the fast magnetosonic-Hall waves, which continuously reduce to their ideal MHD counterparts in the limit of vanishing Hall parameter. Contrary to a recent claim, we find that HMHD does not admit any additional wave branches beyond those in ideal MHD. The key qualitative difference lies in the topological nature of the HMHD wave structure: it exhibits nontrivial topology characterized by a Weyl point-an isolated eigenmode degeneracy point-and associated nonzero Chern numbers of the eigenmode bundles over a 2-sphere in k-space surrounding the Weyl point.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2025

The topology, geometry, and angular momentum of cold plasma waves

It was recently discovered that plasma waves possess topologically protected edge modes, indicating the existence of topologically nontrivial structures in the governing equations. Here we give a rigorous study of the underlying topological vector bundle structure of cold unmagnetized plasma waves and show that this topology can be used to uncover a number of new results about these waves. The topological properties of the electromagnetic waves mirror those recently found for photons and other massless particles. We show that there exists an explicit globally smooth polarization basis for electromagnetic plasma waves -- surprisingly, this does not violate the hairy ball theorem. The rotational symmetry of the waves gives a natural decomposition into topologically nontrivial $R$ and $L$ circularly polarized electromagnetic waves and the topologically trivial electrostatic Langmuir waves. The existence of topologically nontrivial waves, despite the effective mass introduced by the plasma, is related to the resonance of electrostatic and electromagnetic waves. We show that the eigenstates of the angular momentum operator are the spin-weighted spherical harmonics, giving a novel globally smooth basis for plasma waves. The sparseness of the resultant angular momentum multiplet structure illustrates that the angular momentum does not split into well-defined spin and orbital parts. However, we demonstrate that the angular momentum admits a natural decomposition, induced by the rotational symmetry, into two quasi-angular momentum components, termed helicity and orbital quasi-angular momentum. Although these operators do not generate physical rotations and therefore do not qualify as true angular momentum operators, they are gauge invariant, well-defined, and appear to be experimentally relevant.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2025

Spin-weighted spherical harmonics as massless angular momentum eigenstates and their role in obstructing spin-orbital decompositions

We show that for massless helicity $h$ particles, the angular momentum eigenstates are given in an appropriate coordinate system by the spin-weighted spherical harmonics ${_{-h}Y_{jm}}$ of spin-weight $-h$. In particular, these are simultaneous eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, helicity, $J^2$, and $J_z$. The appearance of the spin-weighted spherical harmonics as opposed to the ordinary spherical harmonics reflects the nontrivial topological structure of massless particles with nonzero helicity. The resultant angular momentum multiplet structure is quite different than that of massive particles, with at most one multiplet for each angular momentum $j$ and with $|h|$ acting as a lower bound on $j$. This illustrates the obstruction to a spin-orbital decomposition of the angular momentum for massless particles, as such a sparse multiplet structure is not consistent with any reasonable spin-orbital splitting.

math-ph↗

arXiv2025

Zero curvature is a necessary and sufficient condition for a spin-orbital decomposition

There has been an extended debate regarding the existence of a spin-orbital decomposition of the angular momentum of photons and other massless particles. It was recently shown that there are both geometric and topological obstructions preventing any such decomposition. Here we show that any geometric connection on a particle's state space induces a splitting of the angular momentum into two operators. These operators are well-defined angular momentum operators if and only if the connection has zero curvature. Massive particles have two canonical curved connections corresponding to boosts and rotations, respectively. These can be uniquely combined to produce a flat connection, and this gives a novel derivation of the Newton-Wigner position operator and the corresponding spin and orbital angular momenta for relativistic massive particles. When the mass is taken to zero, transverse boosts and rotations degenerate, leaving only a single connection for massless particles. This connection produces a commonly proposed splitting of the massless angular momentum into two operators. However, the connection is not flat, explaining why these operators do not satisfy the angular momentum commutation relations and are thus not true spin and orbital angular momentum operators.

math-ph↗

arXiv2024

Four no-go theorems on the existence of spin and orbital angular momentum of massless bosons

The past decades have seen substantial interest in the so-called orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light, driven largely by its diverse range of applications. However, there are fundamental theoretical issues with decomposing the angular momentum of massless particles, such as photons, into spin (SAM) and orbital angular momentum parts. While the angular momentum of massive particles has a natural splitting into the Wigner SAM and OAM, there are numerous proposed splittings for photons and no consensus about which is correct. Moreover, it has been shown that most of the proposed SAM and OAM operators do not satisfy the defining commutation relations of angular momentum operators and are thus not legitimate splittings. Here, we prove that it is generally impossible to split the total angular momentum operator of massless bosons, such as photons and gravitons, into spin and orbital parts. We prove two further generalizations of this result, showing that there are no SAM-OAM splittings even if (1) the SAM operator generates non-internal symmetries or (2) if one allows the SAM and OAM operators to generate non-SO(3) symmetries.

math-ph↗

arXiv2024

Helicity is a topological invariant of massless particles: C=-2h

There is an elementary but indispensable relationship between the topology and geometry of massive particles. The geometric spin $s$ is related to the topological dimension of the internal space $V$ by $\dim V = 2s + 1$. This breaks down for massless particles, which are characterized by their helicity $h$, but all have 1D internal spaces. We show that a subtler relation exists between the topological and geometry of massless particles. Wave functions of massless particles are sections of nontrivial line bundles over the lightcone whose topology are completely characterized by their first Chern number $C$. We prove that in general $C = -2h$. In doing so, we also exhibit a method of generating all massless bundle representations via an abelian group structure of massless particles.

math-ph↗

arXiv2024

Graviton topology

Over the past three decades, it has been shown that discrete and continuous media can support topologically nontrivial waves. Recently, it was shown that the same is true of the vacuum, in particular, right (R) and left (L) circularly polarized photons are topologically nontrivial. Here, we study the topology of another class of massless particles, namely gravitons. We show that the collection of all gravitons forms a topologically trivial vector bundle over the lightcone, allowing us to construct a globally smooth basis for gravitons. The graviton bundle also has a natural geometric splitting into two topologically nontrivial subbundles, consisting of the R and L gravitons. The R and L gravitons are unitary irreducible bundle representations of the Poincar\'{e} group, and are thus elementary particles; their topology is characterized by the Chern numbers $\mp 4$. This nontrivial topology obstructs the splitting of graviton angular momentum into spin and orbital angular momentum.

math-ph↗

arXiv2024

Oblique photons, plasmons, and current-plasmons in relativistic plasmas and their topological implications

Photons in vacuum are transverse in any inertial frame; longitudinal photons only exist virtually. By developing a manifestly covariant theory for electromagnetic excitations in relativistic plasmas and applying Wigner's little group method for elementary particle classifications, we show that photons in plasmas are neither transverse nor longitudinal; they are oblique. Plasmons are electromagnetic and oblique as well. The Lorentz invariant characteristics that distinguishes photons and plasmons is covariant compressibility. The manifestly covariant theory predicts the existence of the current-plasmon, a third oblique, electromagnetic eigenmode, and it also enables the study of photon topology in plasmas. Plasmas remove the photon's Dirac point in vacuum by giving it an effective mass, but create a tilted Dirac-Weyl point by reviving the virtual longitudinal photon. The manifest covariance of the theory demonstrates that relativistic transparency, despite being widely studied, does not exist in plasmas.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2023

Photon topology

The topology of photons in vacuum is interesting because there are no photons with $\boldsymbol{k}=0$, creating a hole in momentum space. We show that while the set of all photons forms a trivial vector bundle $\gamma$ over this momentum space, the $R$- and $L$-photons form topologically nontrivial subbundles $\gamma_\pm$ with first Chern numbers $\mp2$. In contrast, $\gamma$ has no linearly polarized subbundles, and there is no Chern number associated with linear polarizations. It is a known difficulty that the standard version of Wigner's little group method produces singular representations of the Poincar\'{e} group for massless particles. By considering representations of the Poincar\'{e} group on vector bundles we obtain a version of Wigner's little group method for massless particles which avoids these singularities. We show that any massless bundle representation of the Poincar\'{e} group can be canonically decomposed into irreducible bundle representations labeled by helicity, which in turn can be associated to smooth irreducible Hilbert space representations. This proves that the $R$- and $L$-photons are globally well-defined as particles and that the photon wave function can be uniquely split into $R$- and $L$-components. This formalism offers a method of quantizing the EM field without invoking discontinuous polarization vectors as in the traditional scheme. We also demonstrate that the spin-Chern number of photons is not a purely topological quantity. Lastly, there has been an extended debate on whether photon angular momentum can be split into spin and orbital parts. Our work explains the precise issues that prevent this splitting. Photons do not admit a spin operator; instead, the angular momentum associated with photons' internal degree of freedom is described by a helicity-induced subalgebra corresponding to the translational symmetry of $\gamma$.

math-ph↗