The Born-Infeld electromagnetism in Kaluza-Klein theory

Abstract

We investigate the properties of non-linear electromagnetism based on the Born-Infeld Lagrangian in multi-dimensional theories of Kaluza-Klein type. We consider flat space-time solutions only, which means that the space-time metric is constant, and the only supplementary variable is the dilaton field, a scalar. We show that in the case of Kaluza-Klein theory, the Born-Infeld Lagrangian describes an interesting interaction between the electromagnetic and scalar fields, whose propagation properties are modified in a non-trivial manner.

19 pages, Latex