Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-symmetry-and-relativity-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/4/c/solution
Past exam of the symmetry and relativity course of the University of Oxford 2017 4 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
For , directly contract the supplied vector:Thus whenever its stated normalization is defined, namely and . This is the Pauli-Lubanski orthogonality property.
The description as a unit vector, however, needs an additional assumption. From the given components and the mass shell,It equals minus one only for spin parallel to momentum, including the zero-momentum case. A concrete counterexample is and : the proposed normalized vector has square minus two. Orthogonality is still true. A genuine Pauli-Lubanski pseudovector constructed by boosting a fixed rest-frame spin has invariant norm ; the source's generic spatial expression and denominator do not supply that normalization for arbitrary .
New to topics? Read the docs here!