't Hooft line in 4D $U(1)$ lattice gauge theory and a microscopic description of dyon's statistics

Abstract

In lattice gauge theory with compact gauge field variables, an introduction of the gauge field topology requires the assumption that lattice field configurations are sufficiently smooth. This assumption is referred to as the admissibility condition. However, the admissibility condition always ensures the Bianchi identity, and thus prohibits the existence of magnetic objects such as the 't~Hooft line. Recently, in 2D compact scalar field theory, Ref.~\cite{Abe:2023uan} proposed a method to define magnetic objects without violating the admissibility condition by introducing holes into the lattice. In this paper, we extend this ``excision method'' to 4D Maxwell theory and propose a new definition of the 't~Hooft line on the lattice. Using this definition, we first demonstrate a lattice counterpart of the Witten effect which endows the 't~Hooft line with electric charge and make it a dyon. Furthermore, we show that by interpreting the 't~Hooft line as a boundary of the lattice system, the statistics of the dyon can be directly read off. We also explain how the dyonic operator which satisfies the Dirac quantization condition becomes a genuine loop operator even at finite lattice spacings.