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The geometry of point particles

Atiyah, Michael, Sutcliffe, Paul M. (2002) The geometry of point particles. Proceedings of the Royal Society A- Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 458 (2021). pp. 1089-1115. ISSN 1364-5021. (doi:10.1098/rspa.2001.0913) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:7968)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/458...

Abstract

There is a very natural map from the configuration space of n distinct points in Euclidean 3-space into the flag manifold U(n)/U(1)(n), which is compatible with the action of the symmetric group. The map is well defined for all configurations of points provided a certain conjecture holds, for which we provide numerical evidence. We propose some additional conjectures, which imply the first, and test these numerically. Motivated by the above map, we define a geometrical multi-particle energy function and compute the energy-minimizing configurations for up to 32 particles. These configurations comprise the vertices of polyhedral structures that are dual to those found in a number of complicated physical theories, such as Skyrmions and fullerenes. Comparisons with 2- and 3-particle energy functions are made. The planar restriction and the generalization to hyperbolic 3-space are also investigated.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1098/rspa.2001.0913
Additional information: Full-text freely avilable via Official URL link.
Uncontrolled keywords: point particles; geometry; energy minimization; polyhedra EQUILIBRIUM-CONFIGURATIONS; CHARGES; SPHERE
Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics (inc Computing science)
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences > School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science
Depositing User: Judith Broom
Date Deposited: 14 Sep 2008 13:06 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:45 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/7968 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Sutcliffe, Paul M..

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