Related papers: Lorentz Group in Ray and Polarization Optics
Einstein had to learn the mathematics of Lorentz transformations in order to complete his covariant formulation of Maxwell's equations. The mathematics of Lorentz transformations, called the Lorentz group, continues playing its important…
It has been almost one hundred years since Einstein formulated his special theory of relativity in 1905. He showed that the basic space-time symmetry is dictated by the Lorentz group. It is shown that this group of Lorentz transformations…
The Lorentz group is the fundamental language for space-time symmetries of relativistic particles. This group can these days be derived from the symmetries observed in other branches of physics. It is shown that this group can be derived…
According to Eugene Wigner, quantum mechanics is a physics of Fourier transformations, and special relativity is a physics of Lorentz transformations. Since two-by-two matrices with unit determinant form the group SL(2,c) which acts as the…
It is shown that the two-by-two Jones-matrix formalism for polarization optics is a six-parameter two-by-two representation of the Lorentz group. The attenuation and phase-shift filters are represented respectively by the three-parameter…
It is shown that the Lorentz group plays prominent roles in at least two areas in condensed matter physics, namely in the Bogoliubov transformation and optical filters. It is pointed out that the underlying symmetry of the Bogoliubov…
Some facts of the theory of the Lorentz group are specified for looking at the problems of light polarization optics in the frames of vector Stokes-Mueller and spinor Jones formalism. In view of great differences between properties of…
Group-theoretical analysis of arbitrary polarization devices is performed, based on the theory of the Lorentz group. In effective "non-relativistic" Mueller case, described by 3-dimensional orthogonal matrices, results of the one…
In the context of applying the Lorentz group theory to polarization optics in the frames of Stokes-Mueller formalism, some properties of the Lorentz group are investigated. We start with the factorized form of arbitrary Lorentz matrix as a…
The ABCD matrix is one of the essential mathematical instruments in optics. It is the two-by-two representation of the group Sp(2), which is applicable to many branches of physics, including squeezed states of light, special relativity and…
Henri Poincar\'e formulated the mathematics of Lorentz transformations, known as the Poincar\'e group. He also formulated the Poincar\'e sphere for polarization optics. It is shown that these two mathematical instruments can be derived from…
We present a comprehensive and self-contained discussion of the use of the transfer matrix to study propagation in one-dimensional lossless systems, including a variety of examples, such as superlattices, photonic crystals, and optical…
The group $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ of all complex $2\times 2$ matrices with determinant one is closely related to the group $\boldsymbol{\mathcal{L}}_{+}^\uparrow$ of real $4\times 4$ matrices representing the restricted Lorentz transformations.…
Two-photon states produce enough symmetry needed for Dirac's construction of the two-oscillator system which produces the Lie algebra for the O(3,2) space-time symmetry. This O(3,2) group can be contracted to the inhomogeneous Lorentz group…
Wigner's little groups are the subgroups of the Lorentz group whose transformations leave the momentum of a given particle invariant. They thus define the internal space-time symmetries of relativistic particles. These symmetries take…
It is noted that the Jones-matrix formalism for polarization optics is a six-parameter two-by-two representation of the Lorentz group. It is shown that the four independent Stokes parameters form a Minkowskian four-vector, just like the…
It is possible to construct representations of the Lorentz group using four-dimensional harmonic oscillators. This allows us to construct three-dimensional wave functions with the usual rotational symmetry for space-like coordinates and…
Lorentz's group represented by the hypercomplex system of numbers, which is based on dirac matrices, is investigated. This representation is similar to the space rotation representation by quaternions. This representation has several…
We present a didactic derivation of the special theory of relativity in which Lorentz transformations are `discovered' as symmetry transformations of the Klein-Gordon equation. The interpretation of Lorentz boosts as transformations to…
The Classification of Polarization elements, the polarization affecting optical devices which have a Jones matrix representation, according to the types of eigenvectors they possess, is given a new visit through the Group-theoretical…