English

The Kirillov picture for the Wigner particle

High Energy Physics - Theory 2019-10-18 v2 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We discuss the Kirillov method for massless Wigner particles, usually (mis)named "continuous spin" or "infinite spin" particles. These appear in Wigner's classification of the unitary representations of the Poincar\'e group, labelled by elements of the enveloping algebra of the Poincar\'e Lie algebra. Now, the coadjoint orbit procedure introduced by Kirillov is a prelude to quantization. Here we exhibit for those particles the classical Casimir functions on phase space, in parallel to quantum representation theory. A good set of position coordinates are identified on the coadjoint orbits of the Wigner particles; the stabilizer subgroups and the symplectic structures of these orbits are also described.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.09608,
  title  = {The Kirillov picture for the Wigner particle},
  author = {J. M. Gracia-Bondia and F. Lizzi and J. C. Varilly and P. Vitale},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.09608},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

19 pages; v2: updated to coincide with published version