Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 305 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Write for , so . Under the antiunitary operator , the coefficients and exponentials in the mode expansion of a Dirac field are conjugated as well as the creation and annihilation operators being transformed. ThusRelabel and . The stated Dirac spinor identities implyAlso . Substitution reconstructs the original Dirac field at the reflected time:The minus sign comes from reversing the spin label, not from anticommuting field operators. This is the relation between the time-reversal matrix and the charge-conjugation matrix in the supplied spin phases and intrinsic phase convention. Rephasing the charge-conjugation matrix or the intrinsic time-reversal phase can change its displayed form. It proves time reversal of a Dirac field without identifying an antiunitary operator with its finite-dimensional spinor matrix.