nLab
instanton

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physics, mathematical physics

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theory (physics), model (physics)

Contents

Idea

In physics an instanton is a field configuration with a “topological twist”: not in the connected component of the trivial field configurations.

The term derives from the special case of instantons on a sphere but modeled as field configurations on a Euclidean space constrained to vanish asymptotically. These look like solutions localized in spacetime: “at an instant”.

Examples

gauge field: models and components

physicsdifferential geometrydifferential cohomology
gauge fieldconnection on a bundlecocycle in differential cohomology
instanton/charge sectorprincipal bundlecocycle in underlying cohomology
gauge potentiallocal connection differential formlocal connection differential form
field strengthcurvatureunderlying cocycle in de Rham cohomology
gauge transformationequivalencecoboundary
minimal couplingcovariant derivativetwisted cohomology
BRST complexLie algebroid of moduli stackLie algebroid of moduli stack
extended Lagrangianuniversal Chern-Simons n-bundleuniversal characteristic map

References

See also literature at Yang-Mills instanton.

  • Dan Freed, Karen Uhlenbeck?, Instantons and four-manifolds, Springer-Verlag, (1991)

  • Nicholas Manton, Paul M. Sutcliffe, Topological solitons, Cambridge Monographs on Math. Physics, gBooks

  • Werner Nahm, Self-dual monopoles and calorons, in Group theoretical methods in physics (Trieste, 1983), pages 189-200. Springer, Berlin (1984) (journal)

A generalization is discussed in

Expositions and summaries of this are in

Revised on January 7, 2013 19:34:34 by Urs Schreiber (89.204.154.29)
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