Noether Currents and Maxwell-Type Equations of Motion in Higher Derivative Gravity Theories

In general coordinate invariant gravity theories whose Lagrangians contain arbitrarily high order derivative fields, the Noether currents for the global translation and for the Nakanishi’s IOSp(8|8) choral symmetry containing the BRS symmetry as its member are constructed. We generally show that for each of these Noether currents, a suitable linear combination of equations of motion can be brought into the form of a Maxwell-type field equation possessing the Noether current as its source term.

Theory of generalized Josephson effects

The DC Josephson effect is the flow of supercurrent across a weak link between two superconductors with different values of their order parameters, the phase. We formulate this notion for any kind of spontaneous continuous symmetry breaking. The quantity that flows between the two systems is the zero-wavenumber Noether current associated with the broken symmetry. The AC Josephson effect is the oscillation of current due to the energy difference between the two systems caused by an imposed asymmetric chemical potential of Noether charge. As an example of novel physics, a Josephson effect is predicted between two crystalline solids, potentially measurable as a force periodic in the separation distance.

The Noether current in Maxwell's equations and radiation under symmetry breaking

Symmetries in physical systems are defined in terms of conserved Noether Currents of the associated Lagrangian. In electrodynamic systems, global symmetry is defined through conservation of charges, which is reflected in gauge symmetry; however, loss of charges from a radiating system can be interpreted as localized loss of the Noether current which implies that electrodynamic symmetry has been locally broken. Thus, we propose that global symmetries and localized symmetry breaking are interwoven into the framework of Maxwell's equations which appear as globally conserved and locally non-conserved charges in an electrodynamic system and define the geometric topology of the electromagnetic field. We apply the ideas in the context of explaining radiation from dielectric materials with low physical dimensions. We also briefly look at the nature of reversibility in electromagnetic wave generation which was initially proposed by Planck, but opposed by Einstein and in recent years by Zoh. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Celebrating 125 years of Oliver Heaviside's ‘Electromagnetic Theory’’.

4D N = 1 SYM supercurrent on the lattice in terms of the gradient flow

The gradient flow [1–5] gives rise to a versatile method to construct renor-malized composite operators in a regularization-independent manner. By adopting this method, the authors of Refs. [6–9] obtained the expression of Noether currents on the lattice in the cases where the associated symmetries are broken by lattice regularization. We apply the same method to the Noether current associated with supersymmetry, i.e., the supercurrent. We consider the 4D N = 1 super Yang–Mills theory and calculate the renormalized supercurrent in the one-loop level in the Wess–Zumino gauge. We then re-express this supercurrent in terms of the flowed gauge and flowed gaugino fields [10].

Gravitational energy in the framework of embedding and splitting theories

We study various definitions of the gravitational field energy based on the usage of isometric embeddings in the Regge–Teitelboim approach. For the embedding theory, we consider the coordinate translations on the surface as well as the coordinate translations in the flat bulk. In the latter case, the independent definition of gravitational energy–momentum tensor appears as a Noether current corresponding to global inner symmetry. In the field-theoretic form of this approach (splitting theory), we consider Noether procedure and the alternative method of energy–momentum tensor defining by varying the action of the theory with respect to flat bulk metric. As a result, we obtain energy definition in field-theoretic form of embedding theory which, among the other features, gives a nontrivial result for the solutions of embedding theory which are also solutions of Einstein equations. The question of energy localization is also discussed.

Variational derivatives in locally Lagrangian field theories and Noether–Bessel-Hagen currents

The variational Lie derivative of classes of forms in the Krupka’s variational sequence is defined as a variational Cartan formula at any degree, in particular for degrees lesser than the dimension of the basis manifold. As an example of application, we determine the condition for a Noether–Bessel-Hagen current, associated with a generalized symmetry, to be variationally equivalent to a Noether current for an invariant Lagrangian. We show that, if it exists, this Noether current is exact on-shell and generates a canonical conserved quantity.