How statement and proof provenance work
The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.
- Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
- AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
Pure-gauge potential and free massive charged motion
Symbolic flat-Minkowski example of the adopted external-field massive charged test-body action, on finite fixed-endpoint timelike segments and under the inherited countable-choice hypothesis. The pure-gauge potential changes a local canonical covector without changing the kinetic momentum or producing a Lorentz force. No self-field, radiation reaction, measured energy, empirical finding or interaction mechanism is asserted.
Example
Use flat affine Minkowski spacetime with signature in one named inertial chart , , with coordinates in metres. Adopt the external charged test-body action of External-field charged-particle action, the model quantities of Charged and spinning test-body quantities, and the countable-choice hypothesis of The Axiom of Countable Choice () required by the final action-equivalence supplier; no full Axiom of Choice is assumed. Fix kilograms, coulombs and metres per second. For a chosen constant in tesla, put
Here has units tesla metre squared and the covector components have units tesla metres. Then . On every finite future-timelike segment with , proper-time parameter in seconds and fixed endpoint events , the action differs from its zero-potential value by
Thus its stationary curves are precisely the free massive straight timelike curves on these segments. Their kinetic momentum , , is constant. With and the local canonical covector of Gauge boundary term and kinetic/canonical momentum,
The raised and lowered spatial components agree in this chart. This canonical component can vary when , while the Lorentz force and kinetic-momentum derivative vanish. If any factor vanishes, the canonical component is constant too. The shift is a gauge-dependent covector calculation, not a force or an energy measurement.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The flat inertial chart, , constants , the displayed polynomial potential, finite timelike segments parameterized by proper time, fixed endpoint events and the adopted action model.
External-field charged-particle action adopts stationarity of under finite fixed-endpoint timelike variations on a local potential domain. The displayed potential is smooth globally, so every stated finite segment lies in such a domain.
The Axiom of Countable Choice (): assume only for the canonical tangent-bundle smooth structure used by the action-equivalence supplier.
Oriented time-oriented affine Minkowski space (the spacetime primitives) and Inertial frames and inertial charts of the affine Minkowski model supply the constant flat metric matrix and the inertial chart. Existence and uniqueness of the metric-selected connection of a nondegenerate metric, and its extension to tensor fields supplies the Levi–Civita coefficient formula; the constant metric makes every coefficient zero, so covariant differentiation in this chart is ordinary component differentiation.
Gauge boundary term and kinetic/canonical momentum: replacing zero potential by leaves the field strength zero, adds to the finite fixed-endpoint action, and changes the canonical covector to while leaving the kinetic covector unchanged.
Stationary charged action and Lorentz force: under [A2] and the finite proper-time/potential-domain conditions, stationarity is equivalent to .
Charged and spinning test-body quantities: is future timelike with , is kinetic momentum, and are constant model parameters.
A function continuous on an interval whose derivative vanishes at every interior point of is constant on ; consequently two such functions with the same derivative differ by a constant: a differentiable real function on a connected interval with zero derivative is constant.
Verification
The polynomial is smooth and , so its only nonzero potential component is . The alternating coordinate derivatives give : all off-diagonal partial derivatives vanish and the only diagonal derivative cancels itself. Applying [F2] with initial potential zero gives the displayed action difference. It is fixed under the endpoint-preserving variations of [A1], so stationarity is unchanged.
By [A2] and [F3], stationarity is equivalent to . Since and the metric matrix is constant, [F1] gives ; thus the equation is in the inertial chart. Apply [F5] to each component on the interval to obtain constant ; applying it to gives . Conversely a future-timelike proper-time straight curve has and is stationary by the reverse implication of [F3]. No compatible endpoint curve is asserted to exist for arbitrary endpoint events or arbitrary proper-time duration.
By [F4], is constant, and [F2] gives . Differentiating along the curve from step 2.1 yields , with by [F1]. Hence the canonical component may vary exactly as stated while and . The action shift has units joule-seconds and the canonical covector components have momentum units; neither is an empirical measurement.
Depends on
Oriented time-oriented affine Minkowski space (the spacetime primitives)
Inertial frames and inertial charts of the affine Minkowski model
Charged and spinning test-body quantities
External-field charged-particle action
Gauge boundary term and kinetic/canonical momentum
Stationary charged action and Lorentz force
The Axiom of Countable Choice ()
A function continuous on an interval whose derivative vanishes at every interior point of is constant on ; consequently two such functions with the same derivative differ by a constant
Existence and uniqueness of the metric-selected connection of a nondegenerate metric, and its extension to tensor fields