The nature of electronic charge

LEP experiments indicate that the charge of the electron is distributed over a small radius $\sim10^{-20} $m. By incorporating this information in spinning sphere model of electron we arrive at a new interpretation of charge as the Schwinger corrected or electromagnetic or magnetic self-energy mass. The charge-energy equivalence is also arrived at in this paper. Further it is predicted that particles with zero mass will not contain any charge.

We recently performed experiments on the transfer of photon spin to electron orbital angular momentum. For an interpretation of the experimental results we used a classical electrodynamic model of the photon as a propagating electromagnetic solitary wave which is developed in detail here. A linearly polarized monochromatic photon is considered as a propagating solitary electromagnetic wave of finite energy hf which carries an angular momentum h/2pi with the frequency f and Pl...

The question as to whether the integrality of the spectrum of observed electric charges is due to a quantum effext has fascinated theoretical physicists throughout the last century. It leads to unanswered questions at the heart of quantum field theory and its role as a framework for particle physics.

The standard model (SM) of particle physics has been supported by several experimental findings, the most remarkable of them being the discovery of the weak gauge bosons, W and Z. It is expected that the Higgs boson could show up by 2007 at LHC, CERN. In spite of this, the unsatisfactory features of the SM at conceptual level, and exclusion of gravity from the unification scheme have led to explore 'the physics beyond the SM'. A critique and comprehensive review of the cont...

This essay is a tribute to Professor Roman Jackiw on the occasion of his eightieth year. It discusses some ideas about Fermion zero modes and fractional charges and quantum entanglement.

We discuss topologically massive QED --- the Abelian gauge theory in which (2+1)-dimensional QED with a Chern-Simons term is minimally coupled to a spinor field. We quantize the theory in covariant gauges, and construct a class of unitary transformations that enable us to embed the theory in a Fock space of states that implement Gauss's law. We show that when electron (and positron) creation and annihilation operators represent gauge-invariant charged particles that are surro...

Light fields get large scale fluctuations during inflation. If some of them are electrically charged, then large scale fluctuations of the electric charge will be generated. As a consequence, any finite portion of the Universe, including our observable one, will carry a net electric charge. This fact does not require any form of breaking of the gauge symmetry at any time. We discuss under which conditions such a charge is maintained until the end of inflation, and we estimate...

The physical content of Chern-Simons-action is discussed and it is shown that this action is proportional to the usual charged matter interaction term in electrodynamics.

It is well known that magnetic monopoles are related to the first Chern class. In this note electric charge is used to construct an analogous characteristic class: the charge class.

Ratio of electron charge radius and Compton wavelength of electron is known to be equal to the dimensionless electromagnetic coupling constant $e^2 /\hbar c$. It is pointed out that the coupling constant has two alternative interpretations: as a ratio of two angular momenta since Planck constant has the dimension of angular momentum, and two flux quanta $e$ and $hc/e$. We argue that it has deep physical significance such that the electronic charge becomes flus itself and at a...