Maxwell Theory on a Compact Manifold as a Topologically Ordered System

Understand

We study novel type of contributions to the entropy of the Maxwell system defined on a compact manifold such as torus.

• These new terms are not related to the physical propagating photons.
• Rather, these novel contributions emerge as a result of tunnelling events when transitions occur between topologically different but physical identical vacuum winding states.
• We compute two new (topologically protected) types of contributions to the entropy in this system resulting from this dynamics.