Charge conjugation and Maiorana spinors in dimension 8

• Autorzy: Pertti Lounesto
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

It is a common belief among theoretical physicists that the charge conjugation of the Dirac equation has an analogy in higher dimensional space-times so that in an 8-dimensional space-time there would also be Maiorana spinors as eigenspinors of a charge conjugation, which would swap the sign of the electric charge of the Dirac equation. This article shows that this mistaken belief is based on inadequate distinction between two kinds of charge conjugation: the electric conjugation swapping the sign of the Dirac equation and the Maiorana conjugation fixing the real subalgebra (of the complexification of the Clifford algebra of the space-time). Only the latter conjugation has Maiorana spinors as its eigenspinors.

• Wydawca: Institute of Mathematics Polish Academy of Sciences
• Czasopismo: Banach Center Publications
• Rocznik: 1996
• Tom: 37
• Numer: 1
• Strony: 289-293

Daty

wydano

1996

Twórcy

autor

Pertti Lounesto

• Institute of Mathematics, Helsinki University of Technology, SF-02150 Espoo, Finland

Bibliografia

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• [2] P. Budinich and A. Trautman, The Spinorial Chessboard, Berlin 1988.
• [3] A. Crumeyrolle, Orthogonal and Symplectic Clifford Algebras, Spinor Structures, Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht 1990.
• [4] R. Delanghe, F. Sommen, and V. Souček, Clifford Algebra and Spinor Valued Functions: A function theory for the Dirac operator, Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht 1992.
• [5] F. R. Harvey, Spinors and Calibrations, Academic Press, San Diego 1990.