Group Theory - QMII 2017

There are many references about the subject. Here are three of them:

1. The Quantum Theory of Fields Vol. I, S. Weinberg.

2. Quantum Field Theory, L. Ryder.

3. Group Theory in Physics, W. K. Tung.

1 The proper Lorentz group and poincare

1.1 Reminder
Recall that at the end of the day spacial relativity is a theory of transfor-
mation rules. The allowed set of transformations are those which leaves the
interval invariant. The interval which is measured to be the same in all
inertial frames of reference is

ds2 = dx dx . (1)

We found that under the general transformation dx ! dx , the allowed

s are those who satisfies the following condition:

= T . (2)

We separate them to two classes - rotations and boosts. Note that in both
cases the determinant is det() = 1. This is related to the fact that this
continuous transformations are connected to the identity, i.e. (0, 0) = 1.

1.2 Discrete symmetries

The group O(1, 3) contains also transformations with || = 1. This is
related to discrete symmetries. On top of the continuous rotations and boosts
there are two additional discrete transformations - time reversal (T ) and

1
parity (P )
0 1 0 1
1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
B C B C
B 0 1 0 0C B0 1 0 0C
T =B
B
C , P =B C. (3)
@ 0 0 1 0CA
B0
@ 0 1 0C A
0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1

All together we get the complete Lorentz group which has four discon-
nected pieces

P
L"+ ! L" = P L"+
proper-orthochronous improper orthochronous

T
l l T

L#+ = T L"+ ! L# = P T L"+

proper nonorthochronous P improper nonorthochronous

From now on we will consider only the proper-orthochronous Lorentz group

L"+ .

1.3 Poincare
So far we consider just linear transformations of dx . There are additional
four transformations which leaves ds2 invariant. Those are translations of
space time x ! x + a , with some constant four vector a . Clearly dx0 =
dx . Including this transformations as well is known as the Poincare group.

2
2 Generatros and algebra
We would like to find the generators and the algebra of the Lorentz and
Poincare groups. We will start from the generators of translations which will
give us an example of representations in quantum mechanics.

2.1 Poincare
For simplicity we will consider a one-dimensional problem. Consider the
group of spatial translation in 1D x ! x + a. We would like to find the
action of this group on the Hilbert space. To this end consider a basis of
eigenvectors of the position operator X. The action of the translation group
on this space is just

T (a) |xi = |x + ai . (4)

This is clearly a representation since

1
T (a)T (b) = T (a + b) , T (0) = 1 , T (a) = T ( a) . (5)

As we saw before, group elements are exponentiation of the generators,

namely the operator T (a) can be written as

T (x) = eiP x , (6)

where by definition P is the generator of translations. This is a hermitian

operator so it has real eigenvalues, which are given by

P |pi = p |pi ) T (x) |pi = eipx |pi . (7)

3
What can we learn about this p? For this end let us examine the wave
function (x) = hx| i.
Z 1 Z 1
T (a) | i = T (a) |xi (x)dx = |x + ai (x)d(x + a)
1 1
Z 1
= |xi (x a)dx ) D T (a) (x) = (x a) . (8)
1

Now we can find the representation of the algebra acting on the space of
wave functions

D T (a) (x) = ei(P )a (x) . (9)

Recalling our definition of the generators we find

(P ) (x) = i@a (ei(P )a (x))|a=0 = i@a (x a)|a=0

= i@x (x) ) (P ) = i@x . (10)

This is indeed the momentum operator that we are familiar with from quan-
tum mechanics. Following similar steps we can show that

The generator of time translation is the Hamiltonian (or the energy),

so as we actually know | (t)i = eiHt | (0)i.

The generator of rotations is the angular momentum operator, so for a

~
rotation of some angle around the n axis we have | ()i = einJ | (0)i .

Having the generators of spatial and time translation it is easy to generalize

it to be covariant. One can find that the generator of space-time translation
x ! x + a is the four momentum p , such that

|x + a i = eia p |x i . (11)

To make all this statements more precise we will have to use Noether theorem.
We will get to that at some later time of the course.

4
2.2 Lorentz
To get the generators of the Lorentz group we dierentiate with respect to
the continuous parameters of the group elements. Recall that boosts and
rotations takes the form of
0 1 0 1
ch sh ..
.
B C B C
B
@sh ch C , R B C
A @ c s A . (12)
...
s c

Then we find six independent generators, three Ki for boosts and three Ji
for rotations
0 1 0 1 0 1
0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
1
B C B C B C
B1 0 0 0 C B 0C B0 0C
K1 = i B C , K2 = i B0 0 0 C , K3 = iB
0 0 C ,
B0 0 0 0 C B1 0 0 0C B0 0 0C
0
@ A @ A @ A
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
0
0 1 0 1 0 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B C B C B C
B0 0 0 0 C B 1C B0 0 1 0C
J1 = i B C , J2 = i B0 0 0 C , J3 = iB C .
B0 0 0 1 C B0 0 0 0C B0 1 0 0C
@ A @ A @ A
0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

Note that the representation is not Hermitian. The commutation relations

are

[Ji , Jj ] = iijk Jk , [Ki , Kj ] = iijk Jk , [Ji , Kj ] = iijk Kk . (13)

There is a compact way of organizing the generators in an antisymmetric

matrix J , where

Jij = ijk Jk , J0i = Ki , J = J . (14)

Their elements can be written as

(J ) = i( ) . (15)

5
The commutation relations are

[J , J ] = i ( J J J + J ) . (16)

Now we can get group elements by exponentiating the algebra,

i J
= e2!
, (17)

where ! = ! and the 1/2 is there to avoid over-counting.

3 Irreducible representations
We are now at a stage to study the irreducible representations of the Lorentz
group. Nevertheless there is a crucial dierence between the Lorentz group
and the groups that we study so far - the Lorentz group is not compact.
As a result the irreducible representations can be classified in one of two
possibilities

Finite dimensional but non-unitary representation.

Infinite dimensional but unitary representation.

This is a deep statement and has far reaching consequences in the study of
relativistic quantum mechanics. In quantum field theories the field opera-
tors transform under certain finite dimensional representations, while for the
consistency of quantum mechanics, the states must transform under certain
unitary representation.

3.1 Finite dimensional irreducible representation

The easiest way to study the representations is by complexifing the algebra1 .
The Lorentz algebra has a particularly simple structure. Define a new basis
1
Roughly speaking it means that we are now allowing ourself to take 2 C instead of
2 R.

6
for so(1, 3)C,

1 1
Mi = (Ji + iKi ) , Ni = (Ji iKi ) , i = 1, 2, 3 . (18)
2 2

The commutators are

[Mi , Mj ] = iijk Mk , [Ni , Nj ] = iijk Nk , [Mi , Nj ] = 0 . (19)

That means that the algebra is isomorphic to that of the group SU (2)
SU (2). Each irrep of Lorentz can therefore be denoted as (jM , jN ), where
jM,N are the eigenvalues of the two quadratic Casimir operators M 2 , N 2 .
Here are some examples for the most common representations:

(0, 0): Trivial (Lorentz scalar)

( 12 , 0): Right Weyl spinor

(0, 12 ): Left Weyl spinor

( 12 , 0) (0, 12 ): Dirac spinor

( 12 , 12 ): Fundamental (4-vector)

(1, 0) (0, 1): Antisymmetric 2-tensor, e.g. F

To see how does it work lets take ( 12 , 12 ) as an example. First note that if we
define (122 , i ), there is a one-to-one mapping

1
x ! X = x

, x = T r[
X] . (20)
2

The transformation of X is given by

i i iN i i i
X ! eii M Xe = eii Xe i i
. (21)

Recall that we complexified the algebra, so now we take , 2 C, and in

order to go back to our original basis (i.e. being consistent with Eq. (18)) we

7
must impose Re[] = Re[ ], Im[] = Im[ ], so

i ii i
X ! eii Xe AXA (22)

Ill leave it as an exercise to show that

General Lorentz (L"+ ) transformation is given by (A) = 12 T r[

A A ].

If is real (i.e. A is unitary) is a pure rotation.

If is imaginary (i.e. A is hermitian) is a pure boost.

4 Unitary irreducible representations

The Poincare group has two quadratic Casimir operators - P 2 = P P , and
W 2 = W W , where

1
W = J P (23)
2

is known as the Pauli-Lubinski vector. For massive particles at rest (p =

(m, 0, 0, 0)) we find

m ijk
W 0 = 0, Wi = Jjk = M J i , (24)
2

so W 2 = M 2 J 2 , with eigenvalues / s(s + 1). Since W 2 is a Lorentz scalar it

will be true in any frame of reference (in the case of massless particles there
are interesting consequences which are byond our scope).
Having the two Casimirs in our hand we can study all unitary irreducible
representation (in the same way that we did for SU (2) SU (2)). We can
get an intuition why it should be infinite-dimensional from the fact that the
surfaces area of a sphere dxi dxi = dr2 is finite, while the surface area in our
case dx dx = ds2 is infinite. In what follows we will consider only represen-
tations with P 2 = M 2 > 0, which are known as time-like representations.

8
4.1 Time-like
In order to build all states of this representation we choose a representative
vector pt.l. (m, 0, 0, 0). This vector is invariant under spatial rotations,
i.e. SO(3). This is also the maximal subgroup of L"+ which leaves pt.l. invari-
ant and is called the little group.
The basis vectors with eigenvalues pt.l. of the operator P are denoted by
|m, s; 0, i , s.t.

P |m, s; 0, i = pt.l. |m, s; 0, i , P 2 |m, s; 0, i = m2 |m, s; 0, i , (25)

J3 |m, s; 0, i = |m, s; 0, i , W 2 |m, s; 0, i = m2 s(s + 1) |m, s; 0, i .

To proceed one have to notice that any L"+ transformation can be uniquely
decomposed into a rotation s.t. the momentum is to the direction of the z-
axis, then to breform a boost to the z-direction, and then rotating back

= R(, , 0)L3 ()R 1 ( , , ) , (26)

where the angles are Euler angles and is a boost parameter2 . Acting with
this transformation on our state we see that the first rotation do just nothing
because of the little group.
The action of the boost on our initial state changes the momentum,

|m, s; pz, i L3 () |m, s; 0, i . (27)

Note that now it is clear that the representation is infinite dimensional. Fi-
nally we can preform the second rotation to get

|m, s; p, i R(, , 0) |m, s; pz, i H(p) |m, s; 0, i , (28)

where we defined

H(p) = R(, , 0)L3 () . (29)

2
Note that again 6-independent variables are needed.

9
4.1.1 Conclusion and summary

The state vectors {|m, s; p, i} that we have constructed are:

1. Span an invariant vector space under Poincare transformations.

2. The representation is unitary and irreducible.

To study the action of the group on the states we first define

1
R(, p) H (p)H(p) . (30)

To see that this is indeed a rotation note that

R(, p) pt.l. = H 1
(p) H(p) pt.l. = H 1
(p) p
=H 1
(p0 ) p0 = pt.l. , (31)

namely leaves pt.l. invariant. Now we can check what is the action of general
Lorentz transformation on a general state
1

|m, s; p, i = H(p) |m, s; 0, i = H(p) H (p)H(p) |m, s; 0, i
~ 0
= H(p)R(, p) |m, s; 0, i = H(p0 ) |m, s; 0, 0 i Ds [R(, p)]
0
= |m, s; p0 , 0 i Ds [R(, p)] . (32)

0
In ~ we introduced the representation Ds [R(, p)] of SO(3) acting on a
spin state s. Under translation we have

T (a) |m, s; p, i = eia P |m, s; p, i = ... = |m, s; p, i eia p . (33)

Thus we showed that the space spanned by {|m, s; p, i} is invariant under

Poincare, irreducible (we can get to all this states by the above transforma-
tions), and it is unitary since the generators are hermitian.

10