Symmetry (physics)
The symmetry of a physical system is a physical or mathematical feature of the system that is preserved or remains unchanged under some transformation.
A family of particular transformations may be continuous or discrete. Continuous and discrete transformations give rise to corresponding types of symmetries. Continuous symmetries can be described by Lie groups while discrete symmetries are described by finite groups.
These two concepts, Lie and finite groups, are the foundation for the fundamental theories of modern physics. Symmetries are frequently amenable to mathematical formulations such as group representations and can, in addition, be exploited to simplify many problems.
Arguably the most important example of a symmetry in physics is that the speed of light has the same value in all frames of reference, which is described in special relativity by a group of transformations of the spacetime known as the Poincaré group. Another important example is the invariance of the form of physical laws under arbitrary differentiable coordinate transformations, which is an important idea in general relativity.
As a kind of invariance
Invariance is specified mathematically by transformations that leave some property unchanged. This idea can apply to basic real-world observations. For example, temperature may be homogeneous throughout a room. Since the temperature does not depend on the position of an observer within the room, we say that the temperature is invariant under a shift in an observer's position within the room.Similarly, a uniform sphere rotated about its center will appear exactly as it did before the rotation. The sphere is said to exhibit spherical symmetry. A rotation about any axis of the sphere will preserve the shape of its surface from any given vantage point.
Invariance in force
The above ideas lead to the useful idea of invariance when discussing observed physical symmetry; this can be applied to symmetries in forces as well.For example, an electric field due to an electrically charged wire of infinite length is said to exhibit cylindrical symmetry, because the electric field strength at a given distance r from the wire will have the same magnitude at each point on the surface of a cylinder with radius r. Rotating the wire about its own axis does not change its position or charge density, hence it will preserve the field. The field strength at a rotated position is the same. This is not true in general for an arbitrary system of charges.
In Newton's theory of mechanics, given two bodies, each with mass m, starting at the origin and moving along the x-axis in opposite directions, one with speed v1 and the other with speed v2 the total kinetic energy of the system is and remains the same if the velocities are interchanged. The total kinetic energy is preserved under a reflection in the y-axis.
The last example above illustrates another way of expressing symmetries, namely through the equations that describe some aspect of the physical system. The above example shows that the total kinetic energy will be the same if v1 and v2 are interchanged.
Local and global
Symmetries may be broadly classified as global or local. A global symmetry is one that keeps a property invariant for a transformation that is applied simultaneously at all points of spacetime, whereas a local symmetry is one that keeps a property invariant when a possibly different symmetry transformation is applied at each point of spacetime; specifically a local symmetry transformation is parameterised by the spacetime coordinates, whereas a global symmetry is not. This implies that a global symmetry is also a local symmetry. Local symmetries play an important role in physics as they form the basis for gauge theories.Continuous
The two examples of rotational symmetry described above – spherical and cylindrical – are each instances of continuous symmetry. These are characterised by invariance following a continuous change in the geometry of the system. For example, the wire may be rotated through any angle about its axis and the field strength will be the same on a given cylinder. Mathematically, continuous symmetries are described by transformations that change continuously as a function of their parameterization. An important subclass of continuous symmetries in physics are spacetime symmetries.Spacetime
Continuous spacetime symmetries are symmetries involving transformations of space and time. These may be further classified as spatial symmetries, involving only the spatial geometry associated with a physical system; temporal symmetries, involving only changes in time; or spatio-temporal symmetries, involving changes in both space and time.- Time translation: A physical system may have the same features over a certain interval of time Δt; this is expressed mathematically as invariance under the transformation for any real parameters t and in the interval. For example, in classical mechanics, a particle solely acted upon by gravity will have gravitational potential energy mgh when suspended from a height h above the Earth's surface. Assuming no change in the height of the particle, this will be the total gravitational potential energy of the particle at all times. In other words, by considering the state of the particle at some time t and also at, the particle's total gravitational potential energy will be preserved.
- Spatial translation: These spatial symmetries are represented by transformations of the form and describe those situations where a property of the system does not change with a continuous change in location. For example, the temperature in a room may be independent of where the thermometer is located in the room.
- Spatial rotation: These spatial symmetries are classified as proper rotations and improper rotations. The former are just the 'ordinary' rotations; mathematically, they are represented by square matrices with unit determinant. The latter are represented by square matrices with determinant −1 and consist of a proper rotation combined with a spatial reflection. For example, a sphere has proper rotational symmetry. Other types of spatial rotations are described in the article Rotation symmetry.
- Poincaré transformations: These are spatio-temporal symmetries which preserve distances in Minkowski spacetime, i.e. they are isometries of Minkowski space. They are studied primarily in special relativity. Those isometries that leave the origin fixed are called Lorentz transformations and give rise to the symmetry known as Lorentz covariance.
- Projective symmetries: These are spatio-temporal symmetries which preserve the geodesic structure of spacetime. They may be defined on any smooth manifold, but find many applications in the study of exact solutions in general relativity.
- Inversion transformations: These are spatio-temporal symmetries which generalise Poincaré transformations to include other conformal one-to-one transformations on the space-time coordinates. Lengths are not invariant under inversion transformations but there is a cross-ratio on four points that is invariant.
Some of the most important vector fields are Killing vector fields which are those spacetime symmetries that preserve the underlying metric structure of a manifold. In rough terms, Killing vector fields preserve the distance between any two points of the manifold and often go by the name of isometries.
Discrete
A discrete symmetry is a symmetry that describes non-continuous changes in a system. For example, a square possesses discrete rotational symmetry, as only rotations by multiples of right angles will preserve the square's original appearance. Discrete symmetries sometimes involve some type of 'swapping', these swaps usually being called reflections or interchanges.- Time reversal: Many laws of physics describe real phenomena when the direction of time is reversed. Mathematically, this is represented by the transformation,. For example, Newton's second law of motion still holds if, in the equation, is replaced by. This may be illustrated by recording the motion of an object thrown up vertically and then playing it back. The object will follow the same parabolic trajectory through the air, whether the recording is played normally or in reverse. Thus, position is symmetric with respect to the instant that the object is at its maximum height.
- Spatial inversion: These are represented by transformations of the form and indicate an invariance property of a system when the coordinates are 'inverted'. Stated another way, these are symmetries between a certain object and its mirror image.
- Glide reflection: These are represented by a composition of a translation and a reflection. These symmetries occur in some crystals and in some planar symmetries, known as wallpaper symmetries.
C, P, and T
- C-symmetry, a universe where every particle is replaced with its antiparticle.
- P-symmetry, a universe where everything is mirrored along the three physical axes. This excludes weak interactions as demonstrated by Chien-Shiung Wu.
- T-symmetry, a universe where the direction of time is reversed. T-symmetry is counterintuitive but explained by the fact that the Standard Model describes local properties, not global ones like entropy. To properly reverse the direction of time, one would have to put the Big Bang and the resulting low-entropy state in the "future". Since we perceive the "past" as having lower entropy than the present, the inhabitants of this hypothetical time-reversed universe would perceive the future in the same way as we perceive the past, and vice versa.