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Amplitude systems for spin-1/2 particles
Michael J. Moravcsik, Jutta Pauschenwein, Gary R. Goldstein
To cite this version:
Michael J. Moravcsik, Jutta Pauschenwein, Gary R. Goldstein. Amplitude systems for spin-1/2 par-
ticles. Journal de Physique, 1989, 50 (10), pp.1167-1194. �10.1051/jphys:0198900500100116700�. �jpa-
00210988�
Amplitude systems for spin-1/2 particles
Michael J. Moravcsik (1,*), Jutta Pauschenwein (1) and Gary R. Goldstein (2,**)
(1) Institut für theoretische Physik, Universität Graz, A-8010 Graz, Austria
(2) Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford 0X1 3NP, G.B.
(Reçu le 25 avril 1988, révisé le 6 décembre 1988, accepté le 13 janvier 1988)
Resume.
2014On discute les propriétés de différents systèmes d’amplitudes qui sont utilisés pour la
description des réactions entre particules de spin 1/2. On compare les différentes représentations et
on présente les transformations entre les différents ensembles sous forme de matrices.
Abstract. 2014 The properties of various amplitude systems used to describe reactions involving spin-1/2 particles are described, the systems compared, and the transformation matrices among them tabulated.
Classification
Physics Abstracts
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1. Introduction.
The analysis of particle reactions (in nuclear- and high energy physics) is facilitated by describing these reactions in a way which explicitely displays the dependence of the dynamics
on all the quantum numbers and parameters which are firmly established. In particular, the
evidence is compelling that the structure of such reactions which pertains to spin and angular
momentum is rich and complex, and that its understanding is a necessary part of eventually discovering the fundamental dynamical laws of particles, and, specifically, that of strong interactions.
The characterization of this spin- and angular momentum structure can be done in at least two ways. The time-honored, traditional way has been in terms of a partial wave expansion of
the reaction amplitudes, which yields the phase shifts. This approach has brought us much insight for many reactions, both in nuclear and in particle physics. The approach, however,
also has some disadvantages which are gaining increasing importance nowadays. Some of
these can be summarized as follows :
a) at all but the lowest energies the partial wave description requires a very large number of parameters ;
b) in most, though not all, of the reactions the truncation of the partial wave expansion
cannot be done cleanly on physical grounds, and the mathematical criteria for doing the
truncation are not unambiguous either ;
,Article published online by EDP Sciences and available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/jphys:0198900500100116700
c) while in some reactions the decomposition into definite angular momentum states appears to illuminate some significant features of the underlying dynamics, in most reactions
this does not appear to be the case ;
d) when there are large and numerous inelastic channels competing with the elastic channel
being described, unitarity (which is the basis for a phase shift description) becomes too complicated to be a simplifying feature in the partial wave description ;
e) in order to perform a reliable partial wave analysis, especially at higher energies, one
needs an extensive set of data in a wide range of the momentum transfer (or scattering angle).
The second way to describe particle reactions is in terms of spin amplitudes which are
functions of the kinematic parameters (energy and angle) of the reaction. While this approach (contrary to the partial wave expansion) does not connect data at different angles and thus
loses some unifying power, it shows many advantages in other respects. Some of these can be summarized as follows :
a) the number of parameters needed for the description of the reaction is independent of
the energy at which the analysis is carried out ;
b) data at single angles can thus be analyzed, something that is not possible in the partial
wave approach ;
c) there is a great variety of amplitude systems which allows one to choose the one most suited for the particular purpose at hand ;
d) dynamic models can be compared with phenomenological descriptions easier and in a
more definitive way ;
e) the analysis is independent of any inelastic channels that may be présent ;
f) specific kinematic configurations (e.g. forward- or backward reactions, or reactions at
90°) can be studied much easier in terms of amplitudes ;
g) the description requires no approximations like the angular momentum truncation
needed in the partial wave approach.
For these and other reasons, amplitude analysis has gained importance and popularity in
recent years.
A frequently occurring and important class of reactions is the one containing only spin-1/2 particles. Nucleon-nucleon and nucleon-antinucleon reactions are perhaps the most promi-
nent, as well as boson-nucleon and boson-hyperon reactions. In other instances, like in electron-proton, electron-electron, and electron-positron scattering, the reaction type is also the same but is further constrained by the known electromagnetic nature of the dynamics. In
any case, descriptions of reactions involving only spin-1/2 particles pervade the literature.
In this practice, a variety of different amplitude systems have been used. As remarked
earlier, they are not so much competitors but they rather complement each other, since for different purposes different amplitude systems turn out to be the best to use. This fact, together with the large number of specific analyses which have been carried out in the past in the various amplitude systems, suggests that it is likely that most of these systems will continue to be used in the future. As a result, it is useful to offer a comparative discussion of
them, and it is perhaps even more useful to display explicitely how one can make a transition
from one of these systems to another. That is the aim of the present paper.
2. Général properties of the amplitude systems.
The number of amplitudes needed for the description of a reaction is, of course, independent
of what amplitude system we use, and depends only on the values of the spins of the particles
in the process, and on what conservation laws constrain the reaction matrix. In this paper our
interest, for practical reasons, will be in reactions with both parity conservation and time
reversal invariance constraining the reaction matrix, that is, in the reactions of the type A + B --> A + B with parity conservation. The conceptual conclusions of our discussion can,
however, be carried over also to reactions which, for example, are not constrained by time
reversal invariance or are not even parity conserving.
With such constraints from parity conservation and time reversal invariance, for A with spin 1/2 and B with spin 0, the number of amplitudes is 2, while if both A and B have spins of 1/2, the number of amplitudes is 6. In what follows, we will specifically discuss only the
reaction with four spin-1/2 particles. The simpler reaction with only two spin-1/2 and two spin-
0 particles has obviously analogous properties on a reduced scale which can easily be deduced
from the present discussion.
The parity-conserving and time-reversal-constrained reactions with four spin-1/2 particles
fall in two additional subsets : one in which A
=B (and the number of amplitudes reduces to 5), and one in which this is not the case. The classic example for the first is p-p scattering (or
p-p scattering if charge conjugation constraints are taken into account), while an example for
the second is n-p scattering (if charge independence is not taken into account). Because of the
difference in the number of amplitudes, and because of the somewhat different amplitude conventions, the two cases require somewhat separate treatment.
In both cases, however, one can divide the various amplitude systems used in the past into several classes and by several criteria.
One way to make the classification is according to the simplicity of the relationship between
the bilinear combination of amplitudes and the experimental observables. There are
amplitude systems which are « optimal » [1] in this respect in that for them the matrix that represents this relationship is as close to diagonal as possible. Other amplitude systems are non-optimal in this respect, in that for them the matrix is either not in the form of a string of
submatrices along the main diagonal, or it is but these submatrices are larger than what is
minimally required.
,For the reactions under consideration in the present discussion, the difference between
optimal and non-optimal representations is small. To understand why, let us remember that in the optimal representations the M-matrix is spanned by basis matrices in each of which only
one element is non-zero, and the density matrices are spanned by basis matrices with only one
non-zero element along the diagonal (the other elements being zero) and by matrices with two
symmetrically placed off-diagonal elements being non-zero (and the other elements being zéro).
Now for spin-1/2 particles these matrices are so small (two-by-two) that the above optimal
basis matrices and the more usual non-optimal basis matrices (e.g. the Pauli matrices) differ only to a slight extent. As long as the three coordinate directions utilized in these basis matrices (e.g. the x, y, and z in the Pauli matrices) are chosen to be orthogonal to each other, the resulting non-optimal representation will differ from the optimal ones (as far as simplicity
is concerned) only slightly or not at all, especially when parity conservation and time reversal invariance are imposed also beside Lorentz invariance. Other advantages of the optimal
formalism (e.g. the flexibility in the choice of bases matrices, see the earlier discussion) will
however remain.
The other way of making a distinction among the various amplitude systems in use is according to whether they use space-fixed or particle-fixed coordinate systems. In the former,
the three coordinate directions are fixed once and for all with respect to the space in which the reaction takes place. They can, for example, be defined in terms of the two directions of, a) the incoming particle momentum, b) the normal to the reaction plane. Thereafter all
particles (that is, both the incoming and outgoing particles) use this fixed coordinate system
for the three directions appearing in the tensors describing them.
In the particle-fixed representations each particle has its own coordinate directions, adjusted, for example, to its own momentum direction. There may be constraints on the relative position of these directions between two different particles, resulting from constraints from conservation laws, but even so, all particles in the reaction are on an equal footing with respect to the definition of the coordinate directions. This is quite different from the situation described earlier for the space-fixed amplitude systems where the particle which is initially
used to define the coordinate system for all four particles is treated preferentially.
One obvious consequence of the space-fixed coordinate systems is that in it the relationship
of the final state particle momenta (if the system was fixed through an initial particle) to the
coordinate directions of this final state particle depends on the reaction angle, while this is not the case for the particle-fixed systems. Consequently the transformation matrices between
space-fixed amplitude systems and particle-fixed amplitude systems will contain the reaction
angle, while the transformation matrices between two space-fixed or two particle-fixed amplitude systems will not contain that angle. As we will see, one system (the singlet-triplet system) is neither pure space-fixed nor pure particle-fixed, and hence its relationship to all
other systems contains the reaction angle.
For many purposes particle-fixed amplitude systems are simpler and « more natural », and
hence many of the more modern systems are of such type. Among these are the whole class of
optimal formalisms as defined in reference [1], and hence also the helicity formalism which is
a special case of the optimal formalism. The so-called « transversity formalism » in the strict
sense of the word is also particle-fixed, namely if it is meant to be an optimal formalism with the quantization axes in the direction normal to the scattering plane. There are, however, also non-optimal formalisms, space-fixed, where the quantization axes are also in the direction normal to the reaction plane. An example would be a formalism which uses the Pauli spinors
as bases with the coordinate (usually called z) which is connected with the diagonal Pauli
matrix being identified with the direction normal to the reaction plane. One needs, therefore,
be careful with the terminology.
The various formalisms also differ from each other according to the properties they focus
on in their definitions. For example, the helicity formalism was defined because of its simple properties under coordinate transformations, and because a partial wave decomposition in it
appears simple if written in terms of the tabulated d-functions, whereas the corresponding decomposition, for example in some of the space-fixed amplitude systems, contains explicitely
many 9- j symbols and other purely geometrical factors which are hidden from the eye in the d- . functions occurring in the helicity formalism. On the other hand, the helicity formalism is not
particularly natural with regard to the parity constraints, and it does not appear to be
particularly natural either in describing the dynamical mechanisms occurring in strong interaction processes. Some of the space-fixed systems were introduced at a time when relativistic effects were small in the then available energy range in the reactions which were of interest at that time, and hence such systems, written in terms of quantities well known from non-relativistic quantum mechanics, were preferred.
Some other systems were specifically constructed to be simple in a particular dynamical
model. For example, the optimal « magic » amplitude system was defined specifically for the
purpose of ascertaining the extent to which one-particle-exchange (OPE) mçchanisms
dominate the reaction. Another example is the exchange amplitude system, originally
introduced during the Regge-era of particle physics, which appeared natural in that dynamical
framework. The planar-transverse system was, on the other hand, introduced not on a priori grounds, but only after an analysis of data, and its justification is in its exhibiting some striking
and simple features qf the data actually obtained by experiment.
Some types of systems show advantages even. in a purely phenomenological analysis of the
data, without regard to the dynamics. For example, the optimal transversity system is a natural one to use in such phenomenological analysis of any parity conserving reaction, since
its quantization direction (normal to the reaction plane) coincides with the preferential
direction in the symmetry operation of reflection which is the basis for parity conservation.
Thus we see indeed that there is a good reason to have such a multitude of different amplitude systems. In the next section, therefore, an overview of a list of these systems is given and their connections are specified.
3. Définitions and transformation matrices.
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