Schrödinger symmetry: a historical review

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Duval, Christian, Henkel, Malte, Horvathy, Peter, Rouhani, Shain, Zhang, Pengming
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Duval, Christian
Henkel, Malte
Horvathy, Peter
Rouhani, Shain
Zhang, Pengming
author_facet Duval, Christian
Henkel, Malte
Horvathy, Peter
Rouhani, Shain
Zhang, Pengming
contents This paper reviews the history of the conformal extension of Galilean symmetry, now called Schrödinger symmetry. In the physics literature, its discovery is commonly attributed to Jackiw, Niederer and Hagen (1972). However, Schrödinger symmetry has a much older ancestry: the associated conserved quantities were known to Jacobi in 1842/43 and its euclidean counterpart was discovered by Sophus Lie in 1881 in his studies of the heat equation. A convenient way to study Schrödinger symmetry is provided by a non-relativistic Kaluza-Klein-type "Bargmann" framework, first proposed by Eisenhart (1929), but then forgotten and re-discovered by Duval {\it et al.} only in 1984. Representations of Schrödinger symmetry differ by the value $z=2$ of the dynamical exponent from the value $z=1$ found in representations of relativistic conformal invariance. For generic values of $z$, whole families of new algebras exist, which for $z=2/\ell$ include the $\ell$-conformal galilean algebras. We also review the non-relativistic limit of conformal algebras and that this limit leads to the $1$-conformal galilean algebra and not to the Schrödinger algebra. The latter can be recovered in the Bargmann framework through reduction. A distinctive feature of Galilean and Schrödinger symmetries are the Bargmann super-selection rules, algebraically related to a central extension. An empirical consequence of this was known as "mass conservation" already to Lavoisier. As an illustration of these concepts, some applications to physical ageing in simple model systems are reviewed.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_20316
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Schrödinger symmetry: a historical review
Duval, Christian
Henkel, Malte
Horvathy, Peter
Rouhani, Shain
Zhang, Pengming
High Energy Physics - Theory
Statistical Mechanics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Mathematical Physics
This paper reviews the history of the conformal extension of Galilean symmetry, now called Schrödinger symmetry. In the physics literature, its discovery is commonly attributed to Jackiw, Niederer and Hagen (1972). However, Schrödinger symmetry has a much older ancestry: the associated conserved quantities were known to Jacobi in 1842/43 and its euclidean counterpart was discovered by Sophus Lie in 1881 in his studies of the heat equation. A convenient way to study Schrödinger symmetry is provided by a non-relativistic Kaluza-Klein-type "Bargmann" framework, first proposed by Eisenhart (1929), but then forgotten and re-discovered by Duval {\it et al.} only in 1984. Representations of Schrödinger symmetry differ by the value $z=2$ of the dynamical exponent from the value $z=1$ found in representations of relativistic conformal invariance. For generic values of $z$, whole families of new algebras exist, which for $z=2/\ell$ include the $\ell$-conformal galilean algebras. We also review the non-relativistic limit of conformal algebras and that this limit leads to the $1$-conformal galilean algebra and not to the Schrödinger algebra. The latter can be recovered in the Bargmann framework through reduction. A distinctive feature of Galilean and Schrödinger symmetries are the Bargmann super-selection rules, algebraically related to a central extension. An empirical consequence of this was known as "mass conservation" already to Lavoisier. As an illustration of these concepts, some applications to physical ageing in simple model systems are reviewed.
title Schrödinger symmetry: a historical review
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
Statistical Mechanics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Mathematical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.20316