Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 The Noether Theorems in Context
- 2 Felix Klein and Emmy Noether on Invariant Theory and Variational Principles
- 3 Moscow, Oxford, or Princeton: Emmy Noether’s Move from Göttingen (1933)
- 4 Getting to the Bottom of Noether’s Theorem
- 5 BV Quantisation in Perturbative Algebraic QFT: Fundamental Concepts and Perspectives
- 6 Divergence Invariant Variational Problems
- 7 Do Symmetries ‘Explain’ Conservation Laws? The Modern Converse Noether Theorem vs Pragmatism
- 8 Noether’s First Theorem and the Energy-Momentum Tensor Ambiguity Problem
- 9 Noether’s Theorems and Energy in General Relativity
- 10 Geometric Objects and Perspectivalism
- 11 Substantive General Covariance and the Einstein–Klein Dispute: A Noetherian Approach
- 12 Noether Charges, Gauge-Invariance, and Non-Separability
- 13 Observability, Redundancy, and Modality for Dynamical Symmetry Transformations
- 14 The Gauge Argument: A Noether Reason
- Index
12 - Noether Charges, Gauge-Invariance, and Non-Separability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 The Noether Theorems in Context
- 2 Felix Klein and Emmy Noether on Invariant Theory and Variational Principles
- 3 Moscow, Oxford, or Princeton: Emmy Noether’s Move from Göttingen (1933)
- 4 Getting to the Bottom of Noether’s Theorem
- 5 BV Quantisation in Perturbative Algebraic QFT: Fundamental Concepts and Perspectives
- 6 Divergence Invariant Variational Problems
- 7 Do Symmetries ‘Explain’ Conservation Laws? The Modern Converse Noether Theorem vs Pragmatism
- 8 Noether’s First Theorem and the Energy-Momentum Tensor Ambiguity Problem
- 9 Noether’s Theorems and Energy in General Relativity
- 10 Geometric Objects and Perspectivalism
- 11 Substantive General Covariance and the Einstein–Klein Dispute: A Noetherian Approach
- 12 Noether Charges, Gauge-Invariance, and Non-Separability
- 13 Observability, Redundancy, and Modality for Dynamical Symmetry Transformations
- 14 The Gauge Argument: A Noether Reason
- Index
Summary
A fundamental tenet of gauge theory is that physical quantities should be gauge-invariant. This prompts the question: can gauge symmetries have physical significance? On one hand, the Noether theorems relate conserved charges to symmetries, endowing the latter with physical significance, though this significance is sometimes taken as indirect. But for theories in spatially finite and bounded regions, the standard Noether charges are not gauge-invariant. This chapter’s argument is that gauge-variance of charges is tied to the nature of the non-locality within gauge theories. It will flesh out these links by providing a chain of (local) implications: local conservation laws è conserved regional charges Ô Non-separability Ô direct empirical significance of symmetries.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Philosophy and Physics of Noether's TheoremsA Centenary Volume, pp. 296 - 321Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022