English

Why is CPT fundamental?

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-11-10 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory Nuclear Theory

Abstract

G. L\"uders and W. Pauli proved the CPT\mathcal{CPT} theorem based on Lagrangian quantum field theory almost half a century ago. R. Jost gave a more general proof based on ``axiomatic'' field theory nearly as long ago. The axiomatic point of view has two advantages over the Lagrangian one. First, the axiomatic point of view makes clear why CPT\mathcal{CPT} is fundamental--because it is intimately related to Lorentz invariance. Secondly, the axiomatic proof gives a simple way to calculate the CPT\mathcal{CPT} transform of any relativistic field without calculating C\mathcal{C}, P\mathcal{P} and T\mathcal{T} separately and then multiplying them. The purpose of this pedagogical paper is to ``deaxiomatize'' the CPT\mathcal{CPT} theorem by explaining it in a few simple steps. We use theorems of distribution theory and of several complex variables without proof to make the exposition elementary.

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0309309,
  title  = {Why is CPT fundamental?},
  author = {O. W. Greenberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0309309},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

17 pages, no figures