Disformal invariance of Maxwell’s field equations

Abstract

We show that Maxwell's electrodynamics in vacuum is invariant under active transformations of the metric. These metrics are related by disformal mappings induced by derivatives of the gauge vector $A_{\mu}$ such that the gauge symmetry is preserved. Our results generalize the well known conformal invariance of electrodynamics and characterize a new type of internal symmetry of the theory. The group structure associated with these transformations is also investigated in details.