New Insights into Acoustics and Electromagnetism through Spacetime Geometry

Recent research by Lucas Burns, Tatsuya Daniel, Stephon Alexander, and Justin Dressel explores the connections between acoustics and electromagnetism through a new framework of spacetime geometry. Their paper, titled "Spacetime geometry of acoustics and electromagnetism," published on arXiv, presents a detailed analysis of how both fields can be represented using dynamical potential fields.

The authors argue that traditional field theory analyses of spin angular momentum in these contexts have led to contradictions with recent experimental findings. This discrepancy has prompted a reassessment of the underlying theories.

The study introduces extensions of both acoustics and electromagnetism that utilize the complete geometric structure of spacetime. This approach respects essential symmetries dictated by vacuum wave propagation, resulting in formulations that are both geometrically complete and phase-invariant. These formulations span all five grades of spacetime, linking dynamical potentials and measurable fields through a spacetime vector derivative, specifically the quantum Dirac operator.

The implications of these findings are significant, as they correct equations of motion, energy-momentum tensors, and gauge freedoms, thereby revealing deeper structural connections to relativistic quantum field theories. The authors also discuss how these corrections could impact future experimental tests, potentially leading to new insights in both theoretical and applied physics.

For further details, the paper can be accessed at arXiv:2305.11448.