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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2014

Physics

Chapman University

Helicity conservation

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Generalized Helicity And Beltrami Fields, Roman V. Buniy, Thomas W. Kephart May 2014

Generalized Helicity And Beltrami Fields, Roman V. Buniy, Thomas W. Kephart

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We propose covariant and non-abelian generalizations of the magnetic helicity and Beltrami equation. The gauge invariance, variational principle, conserved current, energy-momentum tensor and choice of boundary conditions elucidate the subject. In particular, we prove that any extremal of the Yang-Mills action functional 1/4 f(Omega) trF(mu nu) F-mu nu d(4)x subject to the local constraint epsilon(mu nu alpha beta)trF(mu nu)F(alpha beta) = 0 satisfies the covariant non-abelian Beltrami equation.