The Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2009-10-28 v1
Abstract
The Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation of the Dirac Hamiltonian is generally taught as simply a mathematical trick that allows one to obtain a two-component theory in the low-energy limit. It is not often emphasized that the transformed representation is the only one in which one can take a meaningful *classical limit*, in terms of particles and antiparticles. We briefly review the history and physics of this transformation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ph/9503416,
title = {The Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation},
author = {John P. Costella and Bruce H. J. McKellar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/9503416},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Standard LaTeX, 6 pages