# Tag Info

0

I believe that the simplest explanation, in the plainest language, is that the Wigner-Eckhart theorem is a quantum-mechanical expression of conservation of angular momentum. This may not be self evident, but it's hard to get simpler.

2

Soliton is correct, there is a factor of two coming in when the indices are raised or lowered with the Levi-Civita tensors and then a contraction is made. Here is how it appears. Consider a four-vector as a Lorentz spinor, x^{\mu}\rightarrow X^{\dot{A}B}= \left[ \begin{array}{cc} x^{0}+x^{3} & x^{1}-ix^{2} \\ ...

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I) Representation theory of the Lorentz$^1$ group is a fairly broad subject covered in many textbooks, see e.g. Ref. 1 for further information. II) The irreducible representation $$\tag{1} (j_L,j_R)~=~j_L\otimes_{\mathbb{C}} j_R, \qquad j_L, j_R~\in~ \frac{1}{2}\mathbb{N}_0,$$ is a tensor product of $V=V_L\otimes_{\mathbb{C}} V_R$ of two complex vector ...

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In the context of e.g. a pseudo-orthogonal Lie group $$\tag{1} O(p,q)~:=~ \{\Lambda\in {\rm Mat}_{n\times n}(\mathbb{R}) ~|~\Lambda^T\eta\Lambda= \eta \}$$ of pseudo-orthogonal matrices $\Lambda$ for the metric $$\tag{2} \eta_{\mu\nu}~=~{\rm diag} (\underbrace{1,\ldots,1}_{p~\text{times}},\underbrace{-1,\ldots -1}_{q~\text{times}}), \qquad n~=~p+q,$$ ...

3

The equation you gave is indeed the definition of matrix multiplication, applied to a $d\times d$ matrix and a $d\times 1$ matrix. But the underlying concept is something more. The thing about vectors is that they exist, in some sense, independent of the numbers used to represent them. For example, an ordinary 3D displacement vector represents a physical ...

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Yes, he defined the vector as behaving that way (a vector rotation is equivalent to a change of basis), otherwise it would not be a vector. A tensor is a different kind of object, it has at least two indexes and behaves different that a vector under transformation of coordinates (as defined in your book). You might probably read more about linear algebra up ...

3

What Qmechanic said in comments is pretty solid, "Lagrangian (2) is not bounded from below because the kinetic term of $A_0$ field has the wrong sign, and hence the theory is not physical in the first place", but I think your Question needs a change of emphasis. Your Lagrangian allows us to construct four equations of motion for four non-interacting fields. ...

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Field $\psi_{a_{1}...a_{n}\dot{b}_{1}...\dot{b}_{m}}$ with a given spin and mass (i.e. field which transforms under irrep of the Poincare group) must satisfy some determined conditions called irreducibility conditions:  \tag 1 \hat{W}^{2}\psi_{a_{1}...a_{n}\dot{b}_{1}...\dot{b}_{m}} = -m^{2}\frac{n + m}{2}\left(\frac{n + m}{2} + ...

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They do not lie in $\mathfrak{so}(3)$ but they lie in its complexification, which would be $A_1$ in the usual mathematical classification. Much of Lie representation theory is set up this way: you work at the level of the complexification then go back to the real form. For compact groups it's not a big deal; for non-compact groups extra care is needed. So ...

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