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The complexified tangent space of a four-dimensional Lorentzian manifold factors locally into an unprimed and a primed two-dimensional spinor representation. Their alternating forms ${ϵ}_{AB}$ and ${ϵ}_{A^{\prime }{B}^{\prime }}$ encode the metric tensor and raise or lower spinor indices. A convention must specify the order of contraction with these alternating forms. An antisymmetric spacetime tensor decomposes into symmetric unprimed and primed spinors, $F_{A{A}^{\prime }B{B}^{\prime }}={\varphi }_{AB}{ϵ}_{A^{\prime }{B}^{\prime }}+{\tilde{\varphi }}_{A^{\prime }{B}^{\prime }}{ϵ}_{AB}$. This splits the six-dimensional space of differential two-forms into the two three-dimensional eigenspaces of the complexified Hodge star operator.

The Hodge star operator is self-adjoint on real two-forms in four Euclidean dimensions, so its opposite eigenspaces are orthogonal. Since $H\wedge G=⟨H,\ast G⟩{\mathrm{vol}}_g$, a self-dual two-form and an anti-self-dual two-form also have zero wedge product of differential forms. Applied to Lie-algebra components with an invariant pairing, this identity eliminates mixed terms from the Yang-Mills action.