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Torsion Cycles as Non-Local Magnetic Sources in Non-Orientable Spaces

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Abstract

Non-orientable spaces are known to be able to support net magnetic fluxes through closed surfaces, even in the absence of magnetic sources. To an observer for whom the non-orientability of space appears to be confined to a certain finite region of space, such a magnetic flux appears as a magnetic charge quasi-localised in that region. In this paper it is shown that this effect is a physical manifestation of the existence of torsion cycles of codimension one in the homology of space.

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Correspondence to Marcos Alvarez.

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Communicated by G.W. Gibbons

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Alvarez, M. Torsion Cycles as Non-Local Magnetic Sources in Non-Orientable Spaces. Commun. Math. Phys. 277, 715–727 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00220-007-0378-0

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