相关论文: Symmetries of Massive and Massless Neutrinos
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…
The internal space-time symmetries of relativistic particles are dictated by Wigner's little groups. The $O(3)$-like little group for a massive particle at rest and the $E(2)$-like little group of a massless particle are two different…
It is noted that the Poincar\'e sphere for polarization optics contains the symmetries of the Lorentz group. The sphere is thus capable of describing the internal space-time symmetries dictated by Wigner's little groups. For massive…
Einstein's $E = mc^{2}$ unifies the momentum-energy relations for massive and massless particles. According to Wigner, the internal space-time symmetries of massive and massless particles are isomorphic to $O(3)$ and $E(2)$ respectively.…
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…
As Einstein's $E = mc^{2}$ unifies the energy-momentum relation for massive and massless particles, Wigner's little group unifies their internal space-time symmetries. It is pointed out that translational symmetries play essential roles…
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…
In this paper we demonstrate that massless particles cannot be considered as limiting case of massive particles. Instead, the usual symmetry structure based on semisimple groups like $U(1)$, $SU(2)$ and $SU(3)$ has to be replaced by less…
Neutrino oscillation experiments presently suggest that neutrinos have a small but finite mass. If neutrinos are to have mass, there should be a Lorentz frame in which they can be brought to rest. This paper discusses how Wigner's little…
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…
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…
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…
When developing a quantum theory for a physical system, one determines the system's symmetry group and its irreducible unitary representations. For Minkowski space, the symmetry group is the Poincar\'e group, $\mathbb{R}^4 \rtimes…
This note summarizes the physics and mathematics of Lorentz transformations for massless particles, specifically for photons. We provide a complete analytical derivation of Wigner's little group matrix and a closed formula for the…
In 1963, Eugene Paul Wigner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry…
R. P. Feynman was quite fond of inventing new physics. It is shown that some of his physical ideas can be supported by the mathematical instruments available from the Lorentz group. As a consequence, it is possible to construct a…
Einstein's photo-electric effect allows us to regard electromagnetic waves as massless particles. Then, how is the photon helicity translated into the electric and magnetic fields perpendicular to the direction of propagation? This is an…
Recently, Cohen and Glashow pointed out that all known experimental tests of relativistic kinematics are consistent with invariance of physics under the four-parameter subgroup Sim(2) of the Lorentz group. The massive one-particle…
Starting with the Chern-Simons formulation of (2+1)-dimensional gravity we show that the gravitational interactions deform the Poincare symmetry of flat space-time to a quantum group symmetry. The relevant quantum group is the quantum…
We consider the scattering of massless particles coupled to an abelian gauge field in 2n-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. Weinberg's soft photon theorem is recast as Ward identities for infinitely many new nontrivial symmetries of the…