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The Yang monopole A monopole in Yang-Mills theory. The generalization of the Dirac monopole from 3+1 dimensional spacetime to 5+1 dimensional spacetime.
For comparison, first note that the Dirac monopole is a circle group principal bundle with non-trivial first Chern class on a spacetime of the form
witnessed (via Chern-Weil theory) by the magnetic charge
which is the integration of the curvature differential 2-form of any principal connection on this bundle over any sphere wrapping the removed origin of . We may think of the Dirac monopole as being an effective magnetic monopole “particle” with worldline . But in the above description we can just as well remove a little 3-ball from space, instead of just a point, and when viewed as such the Dirac monopole is a 2-brane with worldvolume .
Now analogously, a Yang monopole is a nontrivial special unitary group-principal bundle (for which there is no non-trivial first Chern class) with non-trivial second Chern class on
witnessed (via Chern-Weil theory) by the instanton number
which is the integration of the curvature differential 2-form wedge-squared and evaluated in the canonical Killing form invariant polynomial to a differential 4-form of any principal connection on this bundle over any 4-sphere wrapping the removed origin of .
As before, we may equivalently think of removing instead of just a point a small 5-ball and then the Yang monopole appears as a 4-brane with worldvolume . This is how the Yang monopole appears in string theory/M-theory (Bergsgoeff-Gibbons-Townsend 06).
In terms of higher gauge theory the Yang monopole is seen to be more directly analogous to the Dirac monopole: the 4-form is actually the curvature 4-form of a circle 3-bundle with connection on spacetime which is induced from the given -principal connection, namely the Chern-Simons circle 3-bundle which is modulated by the universal characteristic class that is the differential refinement of the second Chern class:
(this is discussed at differential string structure). Hence is a 3-connection with curvature
Now the analog of the first Chern class as one passes to such circle n-bundles is called the higher Dixmier-Douady class, and the Yang monopole charge is just this 2-Dixmier-Douady class of the Chern-Simons circle 3-bundle induced by a -principal connection with corresponding instanton number:
The end-surface of an M5-brane ending on an M9-brane is a Yang-monopole in the M5 worldvolume (Bergsgoeff-Gibbons-Townsend 06).
The Yang monopole was introduced as a generalization to 5+1 dimensional spacetime of the Dirac monopole in 3+1 dimensional spacetime in
More general discussion is in
See also
Appearance of Yang monopoles in string theory goes back to
The appearance of the Yang monopole as the boundary of an open M5-brane ending on an M9-brane is discussed in
Based on this a Yang monopole is realized in type IIA string theory in section 2 of
Last revised on November 20, 2019 at 07:23:11. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.