Gomes, Henrique (2019) Holism as the significance of gauge symmetries. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The thought experiment known as Galileo's ship exemplifies a relational empirical significance of subsystem boosts. The inertial state of motion of the ship is immaterial to how events unfold in the cabin, but is registered in the values of relational quantities such as the distance and velocity of the ship relative to the shore.

Can gauge transformations in Yang-Mills theory---taken as mere descriptive redundancy---exhibit a similar empirical significance? This question has been debated in the last fifteen years in philosophy of physics.

I will argue that the answer is `yes'. This `yes' answer is a result of the inherent non-locality of gauge theory; it is completely compatible with an interpretation of gauge as descriptive redundancy. To clearly pose the problem, I focus on physical, i.e.: gauge-invariant information. Recent results prove that given two subsystems' physical information, the universal state obtained by the composition of the subsystems is not always uniquely determined \cite{GomesRiello_new}. Moreover, the state's residual variety is encoded in the action of a symmetry group on a subsystem. While for Galileo's ship the variety is encoded in boosts and translations, in gauge theory this variety has the structure of the finite-dimensional Lie group of the theory.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Gomes, Henrique gomes.ha@gmail.com 0000-0002-9285-0090
Keywords:	Gauge theory, symmetries, separability, non-locality, reduction, empirical significance of symmetries.
Subjects:	General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism Specific Sciences > Physics > Fields and Particles Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User:	Dr Henrique Gomes
Date Deposited:	03 Oct 2019 15:28
Last Modified:	03 Oct 2019 15:28
Item ID:	16475
Subjects:	General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism Specific Sciences > Physics > Fields and Particles Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date:	1 October 2019
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/16475

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• Holism as the significance of gauge symmetries. (deposited 01 Oct 2019 18:25)
  • Holism as the significance of gauge symmetries. (deposited 03 Oct 2019 15:28) [Currently Displayed]
    • Holism as the significance of gauge symmetries. (deposited 06 Oct 2019 13:56)

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