Related papers: Photons in the Quantum World
If Einstein's photon is $E = cp = \hbar\omega$, Wigner's photon is its helicity which is a Lorentz-invariant concept coming from the E(2)-like little group for massless particles. In addition, the E(2)-like little group has two…
We identify momentum/helicity probability amplitudes for the photon and find their relativistic transformation properties. We also find their behaviour under space inversion and time reversal. The discussion begins with a review of the…
It is noted that the internal space-time symmetries of relativistic particles are dictated by Wigner's little groups. The symmetry of massive particles is like the three-dimensional rotation group, while the symmetry of massless particles…
Why massless particles, for example photons, can only have two helicity one-particle states is the main subject of this work. As we know, the little group which describes massive particle one-particle states' transformations under the…
The ``little group'' for massless particles (namely, the Lorentz transformations $\Lambda$ that leave a null vector invariant) is isomorphic to the Euclidean group E2: translations and rotations in a plane. We show how to obtain explicitly…
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…
The connection between spin and symmetry was established by Wigner in his 1939 paper on the Poincar\'e group. For a massive particle at rest, the little group is O(3) from which the concept of spin emerges. The little group for a massless…
We compute, for massive particles, the explicit Wigner rotations of one-particle states for arbitrary Lorentz transformations; and the explicit Hermitian generators of the infinite-dimensional unitary representation. For a pair of spin 1/2…
Lorentz boosts on particles with spin and momentum degrees of freedom induce momentum-dependent rotations. Since, in general, different particles have different momenta, the transformation on the whole state is not a representation of the…
The second-order differential equation for a damped harmonic oscillator can be converted to two coupled first-order equations, with two two-by-two matrices leading to the group $Sp(2)$. It is shown that this oscillator system contains the…
It is shown that electrons and photons can be considered as composities of particles representating the fundamental representation of the extended Lorentz group $SU(3)\otimes SU(3)$ in (8+1) dimensional space-time which are held together by…
Heisenberg's uncertainty relation can be written in terms of the step-up and step-down operators in the harmonic oscillator representation. It is noted that the single-variable Heisenberg commutation relation contains the symmetry of the…
It is shown that a Dirac(-type) equation for a rank-two bi-spinor field on Minkowski (configuration) spacetime furnishes a Lorentz-covariant quantum-mechanical wave equation in position-space representation for a single free photon. This…
Wigner's little groups are subgroups of the Lorentz group dictating the internal space-time symmetries of massive and massless particles. These little groups are like O(3) and E(2) for massive and massless particles respectively. While the…
The concept of the Lorentz-invariant mass of a group of particles is shown to be applicable to biphoton states formed in the process of spontaneous parametric down conversion. The conditions are found when the Lorentz-invariant mass is…
The two-by-two representation of the SL(2,c) group is for spin-1/2 particles. Starting from this two-by-two representation, it is possible to construct the four-by-four matrices for spin-1 particles. For massless particles, it is possible…
It is a well-known fact that helicity is a Lorentz-invariant for massless but not for massive particles. Nevertheless, a satisfactory proof of this fact and a detailed analysis on the relative orientation between spin and the momentum are…
We study a quantum mechanics with the usual postulates but in which the Heisenberg algebra of canonical commutation relations and the Poincare algebra are replaced by the Lie algebra of the homogeneous Lorentz group SO(5,1). It arises from…
Our main proposition is that field equations for all spins can be obtained from Casimir eigenvalue equations for Poincare group. We have already confirm that statement for massive scalar, spinor and vector fields in Ref.[1]. In the present…
We study the transformation of maximally entangled states under the action of Lorentz transformations in a fully relativistic setting. By explicit calculation of the Wigner rotation, we describe the relativistic analog of the Bell states as…