APPLICATION OF GAUGE THEORY TO ACOUSTIC FIELDS — REVOLUTIONIZING AND REWRITING THE WHOLE FIELD OF ACOUSTICS
This paper is to be dedicated to Prof C N Yang's 85th birthday celebration because the idea here was inspired by Prof Yang's public lecture in Singapore in 2006. There are many similarities between electromagnetic waves and acoustic waves. Maxwell's equations for em waves is the oldest gauge theory. We discover symmetries in the pair of wave equations in the acoustic stress field and the velocity field. We also derive a new equation in terms of the stress field for sound propagation in solids. This is different from the Christoffel's equation which is in term of the velocity field. We feel that stress field can better characterize the elastic properties of the sound waves. We also derive the acoustic gauge field condition and gauge invariance and symmetries for the acoustic fields. We also apply symmetries to study negative refraction.
Note from Publisher: This article contains the abstract only.
