English

Multi-particle Representations of the Poincar\'e Group

High Energy Physics - Theory 2021-07-28 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

In this work we extend the definition of asymptotic multi-particle states of the SS-matrix, beyond the direct products of one-particle states. We identify new quantum numbers which we call pairwise helicities, or qijq_{ij}, associated with asymptotically separated pairs of particles. These signal the appearance of a new source of angular momentum, beyond the orbital and spin contributions. The essence of our construction is to first treat all single particles as well as all particle pairs independently, ultimately projecting onto the physical states. The resulting representations reproduce the usual direct product states for vanishing qijq_{ij}, while for vanishing spins they reproduce Zwanziger's electric-magnetic multi-particle states. Pairwise helicity then appears as a label for the extra little group phase for our quantum states, in addition to their standard little group transformation. Our newly defined multi-particle states are the correct asymptotic states for the scattering of electric and magnetic charges, with pairwise helicity identified as qij=eigjejgiq_{ij}=e_i g_j-e_j g_i.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2010.13794,
  title  = {Multi-particle Representations of the Poincar\'e Group},
  author = {Csaba Csáki and Sungwoo Hong and Yuri Shirman and Ofri Telem and John Terning},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.13794},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T19:39:48.328Z