Podolsky electromagnetism and a modification in Stefan-Boltzmann law

Full text. As it is well-known, gauge fields that emerge from the gauge principle are massless vector fields. Considering the photon as a Proca particle, experience sets an upper limit on its mass. This limit is mProca < 6X10-17eV (PDG 2006). However, a mass term, regardless how small, breaks the gauge symmetry. Nevertheless, there exists a theory in which is possible to introduce a mass term preserving all symmetries of Maxwell electromagnetism, including the gauge one: such theory is known as Podolsky Electromagnetism. Podolsky theory is a second- order-derivative theory and has some remarkable properties, despite those already mentioned: the theory has two sectors, a massive one and massless one, it depends on a free parameter (which happens to be the mass of the massive sector) that, like all other elementary particles's masses of the Standard Model, must be fixed through experiences, and the fact that the electrostatic potential is finite everywhere, including over a punctual charge. Just like Maxwell electromagnetism, Podolsky's is a constrained theory and, since it is of second order in the derivatives, it consists in a much richer theoretical structure. Therefore, from both, theoretical and experimental points of view, Podolsky electromagnetism is a very attractive theory. In this work we study a gas of Podolsky photons at finite temperature through path integration. We show that the massless sector leads to the famous Planck's law for black-body radiation and, therefore, to the Stefan-Boltzmann law. We also show that the massive sector of the Podolsky theory induces a modification in both these laws. It is possible to set limits on the Podolsky parameter through comparison of our results with data from cosmic microwave background radiation. (author)