v 1 8 A ug 2 00 1 On monopole core metastability and charge delocalization in Alice electrodynamics

We discuss monopole core metastability in Alice electrodynamics. It is argued that in some part of the parameter space the spherically symmetric magnetic monopole is no longer the lowest energy configuration carrying a magnetic charge, and that a point monopole may well decay into an Alice loop carrying magnetic Cheshire charge. In view of an expected electric-magnetic duality, similar implications of Alice loops for electric charges are studied in various dimensions. This suggests that in models where charge conjugation is realized as a local symmetry, physical charge can spread dynamically, a higher dimensional analogue of the so called charge separation. Finally, we introduce Cheshire currents and the notion of gauge complementarity which relates them to Cheshire charges.