Healey, Richard (2004) Gauge Theories and Holisms. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Those looking for holism in contemporary physics have focused their attention primarily on quantum entanglement. But some gauge theories arguably also manifest the related phenomenon of nonseparability. While the argument is strong for the classical gauge theory describing electromagnetic interactions with quantum “particles”, it fails in the case of general relativity even though that theory may also be formulated in terms of a connection on a principal fiber bundle. Anandan has highlighted the key difference in his analysis of a supposed gravitational analog to the Aharonov-Bohm effect. By contrast with electromagnetism in the original Aharonov-Bohm effect, gravitation is separable and exhibits no novel holism in this case. Whether the nonseparability of classical gauge theories of non-gravitational interactions is associated with holism depends on what counts as the relevant part-whole relation. Loop representations of quantized gauge theories of non- gravitational interactions suggest that these conclusions about holism and nonseparability may extend also to quantum theories of the associated fields.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Healey, Richard
Keywords:	holism, gauge, nonseparability, electromagnetism, gravitation, Yang-Mills
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory
Depositing User:	Richard Andrew Healey
Date Deposited:	08 Jun 2004
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:11
Item ID:	1163
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory
Date:	June 2004
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/1163

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