Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MODERN PHYSICS D
Volume 18, Issue 14, Pages 2243-2248Publisher
WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO PTE LTD
DOI: 10.1142/S0218271809015953
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Funding
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (Spain) [FIS 2008-01323, FPA 2008-00592]
- UCM-Santander [PR34/07-15875]
- CAM/UCM 910309
- MEC [BES-2006-12059]
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Is there an absolute cosmic electric potential? The recent discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe could be indicating that this is certainly the case. In this essay we show that the consistency of the covariant and gauge-invariant theory of electromagnetism is truly questionable when considered on cosmological scales. Out of the four components of the electromagnetic field, Maxwell's theory contains only two physical degrees of freedom. However, in the presence of gravity, one of the unphysical states cannot be consistently eliminated, thus becoming real. This third polarization state is completely decoupled from charged matter, but can be excited gravitationally, thus breaking gauge invariance. On large scales the new state can be seen as a homogeneous cosmic electric potential, whose energy density behaves as a cosmological constant.
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