Experimental signatures for identifying distinct origins of color field generation

Abstract Signatures for non-abelian dynamics have long been central to QCD and quark-gluon plasma. Equally important are they in spin systems and laser-plasma interactions, where they emerge as effective interactions. Distinguishing experimentally gauge inequivalent sources (and hence the potentials) that produce the same field tensor is one major task in this endeavor. As a step in this direction, this paper investigates how physically distinct sources which produce the same color electric field (uniform and constant) may be distinguished experimentally in a gauge-invariant manner. We first study the motion of a test particle in such fields and show that the resultant trajectories are counterintuitive. We then examine the radiation emitted—both gluonic and photonic and show that each source (independent non-abelian configuration) leaves a unique signature in the energy spectra, laying the ground for application to specific physical systems.