  Electromagnetism is a simple example of a gauge theory where the underlying
potentials -- the vector and scalar potentials -- are defined only up to a
gauge choice. The vector potential generates magnetic fields through its
spatial variation and electric fields through its time-dependence. We
experimentally produce a synthetic gauge field that emerges only at low energy
in a rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate: the neutral atoms behave as charged
particles do in the presence of a homogeneous effective vector potential. We
have generated a synthetic electric field through the time dependence of an
effective vector potential, a physical consequence even though the vector
potential is spatially uniform.
