Sobre “a existência” dos monopolos magnéticos: o que sabemos?

Abstract

In general, the existence of magnetic monopoles is a “marginal” discussion in electromagnetism classes in undergraduate Physics courses. Thus, this work intends, based on basic bibliography, used in undergraduate Physics courses, to describe/present this topic from a historical perspective and its mathematical formulation in physical terms. This is a theme that permeates Physics, from Maxwell's equations to Quantum Mechanics. In 1931, Paul Dirac established this problem based on the symmetry of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, suggesting that the simple fact that there are magnetic charges (magnetic monopoles) would explain why the electric charge is discretized, that is, any value of charge Electricity appears as a multiple of an elementary charge that is equal to the charge of the electron (in absolute value). This is one of the still unsolved enigmas in Physics, why is electric charge quantized? As previously stated, we will explore this topic based on a bibliographical survey that includes describing how the basic bibliography of electromagnetism used most commonly in undergraduate Physics courses exposes this issue; and at the same time, we will research more specific literature, which are scientific articles in the area, how this subject is approached and what conclusions were reached. We are far from a work that means exhausting the content and Physics produced on this topic; We do not have sufficient competence and this is not our objective, but simply to produce material that systematizes the main contributions of the most popular books in Physics Courses.