A Zero-Curvature Representation of Electromagnetism and the Conservation of Electric Charge.

We show that the laws of electromagnetism in (D + 1) -dimensional Minkowski space-time M , explicitly for D = 1 , 2 and 3, can be obtained from an integral representation of the zero-curvature equation in the corresponding loop space L (D - 1) (M) . The conservation of the electric charge can be seen as the result of a hidden symmetry in this representation of the dynamical equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]