Volume-preserving diffeomorphisms' versus local gauge symmetry

Abstract We present a new form of quantum electrodynamics where the photons are composites made out of zero-dimensional scalar “primitives”. The role of the local gauge symmetry is taken over by an infinite-dimensional global Noether symmetry - the group of volume-preserving (symplectic) diffeomorphisms of the target space of the scalar primitives. A similar construction can be carried out for higher antisymmetric tensor gauge theories. Solutions of the Maxwell equations are automatically solutions of the new system. However, the latter possesses additional non-Maxwell solutions which display some interesting new effects: (a) a magneto-hydrodynamical analogy, (b) absence of the electromagnetic self-energy for electron plane wave solutions, and (c) gauge invariant photon mass generation, where the magnitude of the generated mass is arbitrary.