In topology and high energy physics, the Wu–Yang dictionary refers to the mathematical identification that allows back-and-forth translation between the concepts of gauge theory and those of differential geometry. The dictionary appeared in 1975 in an article by Tai Tsun Wu and C. N. Yang comparing electromagnetism and fiber bundle theory.[1] This dictionary has been credited as bringing mathematics and theoretical physics closer together.[2]
A crucial example of the success of the dictionary is that it allowed the understanding of monopole quantization in terms of Hopf fibrations.[3] [4]
Equivalences between fiber bundle theory and gauge theory were hinted at the end of the 1960s. In 1967, mathematician Andrzej Trautman started a series of lectures aimed at physicists and mathematicians at King's College London regarding these connections.
Theoretical physicists Tai Tsun Wu and C. N. Yang working in Stony Brook University, published a paper in 1975 on the mathematical framework of electromagnetism and the Aharonov–Bohm effect in terms of fiber bundles. A year later, mathematician Isadore Singer came to visit and brought a copy back to the University of Oxford.[5] [6] Singer showed the paper to Michael Atiyah and other mathematicians, sparking a close collaboration between physicists and mathematicians.
Yang also recounts a conversation that he had with one of the mathematicians that founded fiber bundle theory, Shiing-Shen Chern:In 1977, Trautman used these results to demonstrate an equivalence between a quantization condition for magnetic monopoles used by Paul Dirac back in 1931 and Hopf fibration, a fibration of a 3-sphere proposed io the same year by mathematician Heinz Hopf.Mathematician Jim Simons discussing this equivalence with Yang expressed that “Dirac had discovered trivial and nontrivial bundles before mathematicians.”
In the original paper, Wu and Yang added sources (like the electric current) to the dictionary next to a blank spot, indicating a lack of any equivalent concept on the mathematical side. During interviews, Yang recalls that Singer and Atiyah found great interest in this concept of sources, which was unknown for mathematicians but that physicists knew since the 19th century. Mathematicians started working on that, which lead to the development of Donaldson theory by Simon Donaldson, a student of Atiyah.[7] [8]
The Wu-Yang dictionary relates terms in particle physics with terms in mathematics, specifically fiber bundle theory. Many versions and generalization of the dictionary exist. Here is an example of a dictionary, which puts each physics term next to its mathematical analogue:[9]
| Potential | Connection | |
| Field tensor (interaction) | Curvature | |
| Field tensor-potential relation | Structural equation | |
| Gauge transformation | Change of bundle coordinates | |
| Gauge group | Structure group |
Wu and Yang considered the description of an electron traveling around a cylinder in the presence of a magnetic field inside the cylinder (outside the cylinder the field vanishes i.e.
f\mu\nu=0
\exp(-i\Omega/\Omega0)
\Omega
\Omega0
\Omegaa-\Omegab=N\Omega0
N
Sab
\psib=Sba\psia
\PhiQP=\exp\left(-
| i | |
| \Omega0 |
| Q | |
| \int | |
| P |
A\mudx\mu\right)
A\mu
A\mu=ib
| kX | |
| k |
Xk=-i\sigmak/2
\sigmak
| gauge (or global gauge) | principal coordinate fiber bundle | ||||||
| gauge type | principal fiber bundle | ||||||
gauge potential
| connection on principal fiber bundle | ||||||
Sba | transition function | ||||||
| phase factor \PhiQP | parallel displacement | ||||||
field strength
| curvature | ||||||
source
| ? | ||||||
| electromagnetism | connection in a U1(1) bundle | ||||||
| isotopic spin gauge field | connection in a SU2 bundle | ||||||
| Dirac's monopole quantization | classification in a U1(1) bundle according to first Chern class | ||||||
| electromagnetism without monopole | connection on a trivial a U1(1) bundle | ||||||
| electromagnetism with monopole | connection on a nontrivial a U1(1) bundle |