Bonciabook (Francesco A.)

Lecture notes of
Introduction to
Quantum Field
Theory
A.Y. 2021-2022
Lezione 1 - 23/09/2021
INTRODUCTION
Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics (NRQM) Description of a single particle

(early '900)
A function is associated with the particle (wavefunction) and its time evolution is given by the
Schrödinger equation:
NRQM changed completely the perspective from the classical mechanics because of its intrinsically
probabilistic description of the microscopic world.
is connected to the probability density.
The kinetic part of the Hamiltonian is given by the classic (and non-relativistic) relation
Therefore, this is a good approximation only if
Goal: include special relativity in the description (i.e. construct a covariant description)
such that in the limit we recover the Schrodinger eq. (or the Pauli eq.).
1° attempt: Schrodinger tried to formulate the relativistic wavefunction lot of problems
2° attempt: Klein-Gordon equation
Idea: same quantization as in the Schr. Eq, (i.e. )
but using the relativistic relation
Issues: problems not with the equation itself, but with its interpretation.
If you use the K.G. eq. as the Sch. eq. (i.e. interpret as the wavefunction of
the single particle) you will find 2 main problems
1) probability density is not positive definite (you can see it looking at the continuity
equation, as we do in Lecture 15)
2) in the free particle solution we find that the energy is .

Moreover the negative energy is unbounded from the low the system collapse
INTRODUCTION Pagina 1
• Now we want to rewrite such equation in a covariant way
Note: the problem 1) is due to
(instead guarantee a definite positive probability density, see Schr. eq.)
Moreover in the differential equation we have to put the and the

of the same order (first order if we want to solve the problem 1).
Solution: Dirac equation (1927)
Note: in this equation is meant as the Schr. one i.e. as the wavefunction of
the single particle
N.B.: • first order derivative probability density ( ) is positive definite
• the non-relativistic limit of the Dirac eq. recover the Pauli eq.
BUT there was still the problem of negative energy states.

Dirac was so sure of his eq. that he formulated a theory to justify such states: Hole Theory.
This theory states that the negative energy states are filled by an infinite number of electron, so
we can excite (e.g. with a photon) an electron from a negative energy state to a positive energy
state. Such electron leaves a hole in the negative energy levels that can be interpreted as a
positive charge particle with positive energy that goes back in time. Dirac interpreted it as the
antiparticle of the electron and called it "positron" (experimentally revealed by Andersen, 1932)
Problems of the Dirac eq. and the Hole Theory:
• Huge amount of electrons in the Dirac sea are hard to explain.
• The Hole Theory does not work for bosons (we can put bosons per level).
• The Dirac eq. deal with a wavefunction that describe only one particle. Then it does not
include the possibility in a process to have a different number of particle in the final
state. However we know from special relativity that mass and energy are the same
thing, therefore in a process (e.g. scattering) with enough energy it is possible to create
new particles.
• When we want to introduce the e.m. field in the Dirac equation, we consider it classical.
However it is known that light can behave like a particle (see photoelectric effect).
Solution: Quantum Field Theory
Let's suppose that the Dirac eq. is a classical eq. as the Maxwell's ones. In this situation
we have both matter and e.m. field on the "same ground".
At this point we have to quantize both the fields quantization
From this operation, we will obtain the electrons and the photons, i.e. the quanta of the
respective fields.
Steps for the quantization:
1. Find the correct "classical" eq. the field obeys to, for instance:
scalar field Klein-Gordon eq.
spinor field Dirac eq.
vector field Maxwell eq.'s
2. Introduce the lagrangian formalism, since it allows to easily find the symmetries of the
system and then its conserved quantities.
3. Move to the Hamiltonian.

Note: this step is required if you use the canonical quantization, however this is not the
only way to quantize (e.g. Feynman path integrals)
4. Now we can quantize. In order to do this we get inspiration from the quantization of the
infinite vibrating string:
diagonalize the Hamiltonian normal modes of one harmonic osc. per mode
quantize the harmonic osc.'s (i.e. get the creation and the destruction operators)
Note: what we obtain are states that can describe a variable number of particles ( excitation
of the field particles). Such states construct a space that is the tensor product of infinite
Hilbert spaces: the Fock space.
How to describe the interaction with other fields:
1. Construct the Lagrangian of the interacting field
2. Quantize as before
We will not study any kind of system, but we will focus on scattering processes
we will study the Quantum Electrodynamics i.e. the interaction of the Dirac field
with the e.m. field by introducing the scattering matrix
At a certain point we will have an interaction Hamiltonian that can't be solved in a closed form
BUT there will be a small parameter
we can apply the perturbation theory and expand the interaction
Hamiltonian/lagrangian (?) in powers of (we will consider only the order)
extract the cross section
In order to do the step for the second quantization we want to include the special
relativity. In other words we want a theory which is covariant under Lorentz and Poincarè
transformations, i.e. a theory which is the same in each inertial frame. This means that the
differential equations that we are looking for will be the same in each inertial frame:
Lezione 2 - 24/09/2021
SPECIAL RELATIVITY & CLASSICAL FIELD THEORY

This is a recap of special relativity to show which notation we are going to use
Einstein's postulates of relativity
Relativity principle:
Physics must be the same in every inertial frame.
In Newtonian mechanics we have another constraint: time is absolute, it is the same in every IF.
From this you get the Galileo transformations
The Galileo's transformations are constructed based only in the fact that Newtonian mechanics
must be invariant, but if you try to apply them the Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism, that
are:
Since we know experimentally that is a constant, then the equations are not invariant under
Galileo's transformations.
To make it works, one of the three following things had to be true:
1. Relativity principle was not universal.
The relativity principle had to be valid only for Newtonian mechanics, but not for
electromagnetism, that meant that it should have existed a preferred sistem of reference that
it was called Luminiferous aether or ether.
2. Maxwell's equations were wrong.
3. Galileo's transformations were wrong.
This implies that Newtonians mechanics was just an approximation for small v of a more
general theory.
The right one was the 3) and the missing piece was a second postulate:
The speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of the motion of the light
source or observer.
" " is constant The composition law You have to rethink the
of velocity changes meaning of time, which now
depends on the inertial frame
Time is involved in the tranformation laws
SPECIAL RELATIVITY AND CLASSICAL FIELD THEORY Pagina 1

Event
It is the instantaneous physical situation or occurrence associated with a point in spacetime (that is,
a specific place and time)
That means that it is a vector with 4 components 3 spatial components
With this component is homogeneous

Simultaneous events
Two events A and B are simultaneous if when they emit a ray of light, they meet at half distance.
The simultaneity is linked to which inertial frame

are you using
Distance in Minkowsky space
A ray is emitted in and reaches after a certain time. Since

it is a ray of light
In a second inertial frame, we get (since is the same)
So we define the distance in Minkowsky space as
Moving to differentials (or infinitesimals)
We want to show that is the same in every inertial frame.

In general
Since if
Experimental fact: Isotropy and homogeneity of space
• This can depend on the module of the relative velocity between the two inertial
frames (but not the direction, because of isotropy).
• It cannot depend on the point (because of homogeneity).

If we take 3 inertial frames
This does NOT

depend on the This depend on
direction and their direction
is a constant
is an invariant Euclidean distance
Properties
is not defined positive
Let's suppose we have two events that happen in the same spatial point in a inertial frame, but of
course in a different time.
On the other hand, if they happen at the same time
Last, if I can find a frame where
The 4D space is called Minkowski space.

Nota bene:
• Only in the two events can be casually connected
• Since is an invariant, its characteristics do not change if you change the referring system

MINKOWSKI SPACE
Let's suppose we have two inertial frames and let's see how to connect them
We can express this in a matrix form
The relations to find and are It is also useful to remember that

LORENTZ TRANSFORMATIONS
We found out that the transformations that leave unchanged the distance are:
Nota: we consider
1) The systems S and S’ with parallel spatial axes
2) Relative velocity is parallel to x.
This configuration does not imply a loss of generality
since
1) We can always rotate the reference frames in
order to go back to the simple case.
This rotation doesn’t affect the spatial part, which has
to remain the same under Lorentz transformations
(also rotation is a Lorentz transformation)
2) A general velocity can be decomposed in a parallel
and a perpendicular part: Only the first one is
affected by the Lorentz transformation
We can rewrite:
Limit of small velocity
In order to see the behaviour of Lorentz transformations in the

limit of small velocities, we can put an infinite velocity of light.
We can see that as the factor , moreover
and
We recover Galileo transformations
Note: we can see the limit as a characterisation of the Newtonian mechanics in

which we consider light signals with infinite speed (i.e. instantaneous propagation).
On the other hand we can also put the condition and expand the relations
respect to the small parameter to recover the same result.
Composition of velocities
We know that in Newtonian mechanics the composition of velocities is simply the sum of the two
vectors which represent the velocities.
Let’s consider a situation in which a point has a certain

velocity in an Inertial Reference Frame (IRF), while
another IRF moves with a velocity . Our purpose is:
• to understand what happens to if and are
smaller than
• To check that in special relativity we cannot
overcome the velocity of light, even with the
composition of velocities (this was possible in
Newtonian mechanics)
• If then it will remain the same in any IRF
Now let’s assume that and
If we take it is immediate to see that we obtain the relation

by using the relation for the composition of velocities
Notes on
RELATIVISTIC
QUANTUM MECHANICS
Roberto Bonciani1
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
e INFN Sezione di Roma,
Piazzale Aldo Moro 2,
00185 Roma
Anno Accademico 2020-2021

1 Email: roberto.bonciani@roma1.infn.it
0.1 Vectors and Tensors
After the introduction of Lorentz transformations, we now want to study how mathematical objects, that
will be used to describe our Physics, transform under Lorentz transformations (LT). This is the subject
of Tensor Analysis.
Let us start introducing a more general definition of vectors in a Euclidean space.
0.1.1 Vectors and Contravariant Components

In Special Relativity (SR) we have to deal with different kind of vectors. The fact that in Newtonian
mechanics, for instance, we do need just the usual Euclidean definition is simply due to the fact that
usually we use an ortonormal system of basis vectors for my vectorial space. In this sytuation the metric
tensor reduces to a Kronecker delta function and it becomes impossible to appreciate the difference bet-
ween different definitions of vectors.
Let us consider a vector space V on R. Let {ei } is a set of independent vectors which constitutes a
basis for V. (It is not said that the basis is orthonormal)
If v ∈ V, it can be expressed as a linear combination of the basis vectors
v = v i ei , with i = 1, · · · , dim(V) . (1)
The real numbers v i are called the contravariant components of v. The place of the index i, as superscript
is relevant. As we will see in a moment, components with an index as subscript describe a different kind
of vector.
Let us consider now a different basis of V, {e′ i } and let Λ be the transformation from the old to the
new basis. We have
e′ i = Λji ej BASIS TRANSFORM WITH Λ (2)
Note that the index j of ej is contracted with the upper index of Λ. Under basis transformation, the
components of v tranform accordingly. The transformation law is the following. Remember that the
vector v is an absolute quantity, that can be represented using different basis. But v is always the same
vector. Therefore, in the new basis we will have
Note:
v = v ′i e′ i = v ′i Λji ej , We are considering a transformation (3)
such that the matrix Λ has det≠0
(i.e. We can invert the matrix)
but we can also write
v = v j ej , (4)
and matching Eq. (3) and Eq. (4) we find
v j = Λji v ′i . (5)
′i
Note that the index of v is contracted with the lower index of Λ (it goes with the transposed). Multiplying
l
Eq. (5) by Λ−1 j on the l.h and r.h.s, we have
l l l
Λ−1 j
v j = Λ−1 j
Λji v ′i = Λ−1 Λ i v ′i = δil v ′i = v ′l . (6)
Finally
l CONTRAVARIANT COMPONENTS
v ′l = Λ−1 j
vj TRANSFORM WITH Λ
-1
(7)
Therefore, if the basis transforms with Λ, the contravariant components of v transform with the inverse
−1 T
transposed of Λ, ΛT = Λ−1 .
In matrix notation
v = ΛT v ′ , (8)
−1 T
v′ = ΛT v = Λ−1 v , (9)
2
0.1.2 Dual vectors and covariant components
Once the vectorial space V is defined, it is automatically defined also the “dual” space, V ∗ , which is the
vectorial space of linear funtionals on V:
σ : V → R, (10)
v → σ(v) . (11)
Since V ∗ is a vectorial space, we can find a basis {ki } in which the functional σ can be represented in
a unique way as
σ = σi ki . (12)
the set σi are real numbers that represent the components of σ in this basis.
Although V and V ∗ are different spaces, they are connected. They have the same dimensionality and
they are isomorfic, but they are different! If the basis changes in V, this will imply a change of basis of
V ∗ . Therefore, we can ask how the components of σ behave under the basis transformation in Eq. (2).
We labeled the components of σ in the {ki } basis with a lower index because the properties of these
components under a basis tranformation in V are different from those of the contravariant components
of a vector in V.
Using (12), we can write
σ(v) = σi ki (v) = σi ki (v j ej ) = σi v j ki (ej ) . (13)
The number ki (ej ) tells how the components of the basis in the functional space V ∗ act on the components
of the base in V. We say that the two chosen basis are “dual” when we have
ki (ej ) = δji , (14)
with δ the Kronecker delta δii = 1, δji = 0 if i 6= j. In this case the situation is much simpler and we have
σ(v) = σi v i . (15)
Note that (15) is not a scalar product! It is the sum of the product of the corresponding components of
σ and v, vectors that belong to two different vector spaces.
Let us consider dual bases. If we apply the basis functionals {ki } to the vector v ∈ V we have
ki (v) = ki (v j ej ) = v j ki (ej ) = v i , (16)
because of (14). Therefore, the action of ki on v is to extract its contravariant component. On the other
hand, we have
σ(ej ) = σi ki (ej ) = σj , (17)
because of (12).
i i
If we consider the change of basis (2), it will imply a change of basis in V ∗ , say from ki to k′ . In k′
the expression of σ will be given by
i
σ = σi′ k′ . (18)
We have, because of (17)
σi′ = σ(e′ i ) = σj kj (e′ i ) = σj kj (Λli el ) = σj Λli kj (el ) = σj Λli δlj = σj Λji . (19)
In summary
COVARIANT COMPONENTS
σi′ = Λji σj TRANSFORM WITH Λ (20)
and the components σi transform according to the transformation of basis (as in (2)). That is why they
are called “covariant” components.
3
Scalar Product and Metric Tensor
Just to have in mind a practical example, let us introduce the scalar product and refrase what we just
said in this case.
The scalar product between two vectors of V is an application of V × V → R, which is bilinear,
symmetric and not degenerate
v, w ∈ V → (v, w) ∈ R . (21)
The scalar product induces a norm on V, that in turn induces a metric. Therefore, with a scalar
product our vector space becomes a metric space.
Let us fix the first vector v and consider the scalar product with every other vector w ∈ V. In this
case we defined a functional fv = (v, .) such that
w ∈ V → fv (w) = (v, w) ∈ R . (22)
fv is formally a vector of the dual space of V, V ∗ . We can choose a basis in V ∗ . Let us call it {ki }, with
the index i as superscript. Therefore, fv will be expressed in a unique way in this basis:
f = fi ki . (23)
Because of the definition (22), in this case we have
fi = f (ei ) = (v, ei ) = vi . (24)
We call them covariant components of v.

We have, in particular
fv (w) = (v, w) = v i (ei , w) = v i wj (ei , ej ) = v i wj gij , (25)
where we introduced the “metric tensor”

gij = (ei , ej ) . (26)
The metric tensor is symmetric (by construction). If it is also positive definite, there is a theorem that
proves that with a change of basis we can find Note:
If e1 and e2 are orthonormal then
the contravariant and covariant
gij = (ei , ej ) = δij . components coincide (27)
In this case we see that covariant and contravariant components are exactly the same. If the metric
tensor is not positive definite, then they are diferent and related by the metric tensor
vi = gij v j . In practice the metric tensor raises or (28)

lower the repeated index
This is the case of Special Relativity.
Since the covariant components of v are defined as
vi = (v, ei ) = (v j ej , ei ) = v j (ej , ei ) = gij v j , (29)
under basis transformation, as in Eq. (2), they change according to the following relation
vi′ = (v, e′ i ) = (v j ej , Λρi eρ ) = v j Λρi (ej , eρ ) = v j Λρi gjρ = Λρi vρ . (30)
In summary
vi′ = Λji vj (31)
Now we can ask how the metric tensor transforms under (2)? We have
′
gij = (e′ i , e′ j ) = (Λρi eρ , Λσj eσ ) = Λρi Λσj (eρ , eσ ) = Λρi Λσj gρσ . (32)
Therefore
′
gij = Λρi Λσj gρ,σ . (33)
4
A two-indices object, gij , that transforms like in Eq. (33) is called a covariant tensor of rank 2.
Using Eq. (33) we can show that the scalar product is an absolute quantity, that does not depend on
the chosen basis. In fact
µ ν
(u′ , v′ ) = gµν ′
u′µ v ′ν = Λρµ Λσν gρσ u′µ v ′ν = Λρµ Λσν gρσ Λ−1 γ Λ−1 δ uγ v δ (34)
−1 ρ −1 σ γ δ ρ σ γ δ γ δ

= ΛΛ γ
ΛΛ δ
u v = δγ δδ u v = gγδ u v (35)
= (u, v) . (36)
We can also define the inverse of the matric tensor (the contravariant version of the metric tensor)
g µν such that
g µν gνρ = δρµ = δµρ = gµν g νρ (37)
and
(u, v) = gµν uµ v ν = uν v ν = uν vµ g µν . (38)
Under basis transformation, g µν behaves as follows:
(u, v) = g γδ uγ vδ = (u′ , v′ ) = g ′µν u′µ vν′ (39)

= g ′µν
Λγµ Λδν uγ vδ (40)
and therefore
g γδ = g ′µν Λγµ Λδν . (41)
−1 l −1 m

Multiplying on both sides by Λ γ
Λ δ
, we have
l m l m l m
Λ−1 γ
Λ−1 δ
g γδ = Λ−1 γ
Λ−1 δ
Λγµ Λδν g ′µν = Λ−1 Λ µ
Λ−1 Λ ν
g ′µν (42)
and finally
l m
g ′lm = Λ−1 γ
Λ−1 δ
g γδ . (43)
0.1.3 Vectors and Tensors in Differential Form

A more convenient (and general) way to define vectors and tensors is to use the apparatus of differential
geometry. In this way, we use local definitions that are valid also for non linear spaces, like in General
Relativity.
Contravariant Vectors
Let us suppose to work in a Euclidean space and let (x1 , · · · , xn ) be a system of euclidean coordinates.
A curve in this space is given in parametric form as



 x1 = x1 (t)
.




. (44)

.




xn = xn (t)

with t ∈ [a, b] ⊂ R. The velocity vector of the curve in the point x0 = x(t0 ) is
dxn dxi
1
dx
vx = ,··· , , vxi = . (45)
dt dt t=t0 dt
Let us suppose that in a neighbourhood of x0 the new coordinates (z 1 , · · · , z n ) are introduced, in such a
way that
xi = xi (z 1 , · · · , z n ) , i = 1, · · · , n (46)
5
and such that in this neighbourhood we have
∂xi

detJ = det 6= 0 . (47)
∂z i
In the new coordinates, the parametric equations of the curve are



 z 1 = z 1 (t)
.




. (48)

.




z n = z n (t)

and we can write

xi (t) = x(z(t)) . (49)
The velocity vector in the new coordinates is
dz n dz i
1
dz
vz = ,··· , , vzi = , (50)
dt dt t=t0 dt
In the transformation from x to z coordinates, the velvcity vector transforms as follows
dxi ∂xi dz j ∂xi j

vxi = = j = v , (51)
dt ∂z dt ∂z j z
Therefore
∂xi j
vxi = v (52)
∂z j z
or, in matrix form
vx = J vz . (53)
A vector whose components transform as in Eq. (52) is called a contravariant vector (or contravariant
tensor of rank 1).
Covariant Vectors
Let us consider the gradient of a scalar function f (x1 , · · · , xn ):

∂f ∂f ∂f
ξ = ∇f = , · · · , n , ξi = . (54)
∂x 1 ∂x ∂xi
If we
n introduce
o a new system of coordinates (z 1 , · · · , z n ) such that xi = xi (z 1 , · · · , z n ) and detJ =
i
det ∂x∂z i 6= 0, we define

∂f ∂f ∂f
η= , · · · , n
, ηi = . (55)
∂z 1 ∂z ∂z i
Changing system of coordinates, the gradient transforms in the following way
∂f ∂xj ∂f ∂xj
ηi = = = ξj . (56)
∂z i ∂z i ∂xj ∂z i
Therefore
∂xj
ηi = ξj (57)
∂z i
A vector whose components transform as in Eq. (57) is called a covariant vector (or covariant tensor
of rank 1).
6
Summarizing, if the jacobian of the transformation is
 ∂x1 ∂x1

∂z 1 . . ∂z n
 . . 
J = .
, (58)
. 
∂xn ∂xn
∂z 1 . . ∂z n
we have in matrix form:
contravariant ξ = J η, (59)
t t −1

covariant η =J ξ, =⇒ ξ= J η. (60)
Note: The transformations of the contravariant and covariant vector coincide in the case in which
−1
J = Jt , =⇒ JJ t = 1 , (61)
therefore, if in every point the transformation is linear (J = const) and ortogonal.
Metric Tensor
Let us now introduce the scalar product of two vectors.
Let us suppose that the coordinate system (x1 , · · · , xn ) is euclidean, that ξ1 and ξ2 are two vec-
, xn0 ) another
tors with origin in P0 = (x10 , · · · , xn0 ) and let us introduce in a neighbourhood of (x10n, · · · o
i
system of coordinates (z 1 , · · · , z n ) such that xi = xi (z 1 , · · · , z n ) and detJ = det ∂x
∂z i 6= 0, with
xi0 = xi (z01 , · · · , z0n ).
Knowing that
∂xi ∂xi
ξ1i = η1j , ξ2i = η2j , (62)
∂z j P0 ∂z j P0
we define the scalar product as
∂xi ∂xi
(ξ1 , ξ2 ) = ξ1i ξ2i = η1j η2k = gjk η1j η2k , (63)
∂z j ∂z k P0
where we introduced the metric tensor

∂xi ∂xi
gjk = = Jji Jki = δrs Jjr Jks . (64)
∂z j ∂z k P0
Let us see how the metric tensor transfoms under change of coordinates. If we introduce in a neighbou-
rhood of P0 a new system of coordinates (y 1 , · · · , y n ) such that z i = z i (y 1 , · · · , y n ) and detJ 6= 0, we will
have
∂z i j ∂z i
η1i = ζ 1 , η2
i
= ζj , (65)
∂y j P0 ∂y j P0 2
Therefore
∂z i ∂z j
(ξ1 , ξ2 ) = gij η1i η2j = g ij ζ1k ζ1l = gkl
′ k l
ζ1 ζ1 . (66)
∂y k ∂y l P0
The metric tensor transforms according to the following rule:
∂z i ∂z j
′
gkl = g ij = Jki Jlj gij . (67)
∂y k ∂y l P0
A tensor that transforms like in Eq. (67) is called a covariant tensor of rank 2.
Note that the metric tensor is a symmetric tensor
gij = gji , (68)
7
because of the fact that the scalar product is symmetric. Moreover, in general
gij = gij (P0 ) = gij (z01 , · · · , z0n ) , (69)
then it is a function of the point in which ξ1 and ξ2 are defined.

Definition The metric gij (z) is called euclidean if it exists a system of coordinates (x1 , · · · , xn ), with
k
∂xk
xi = xi (z 1 , · · · , z n ) and det(J) 6= 0, gij = ∂x∂z i ∂z j , such that in these coordinates we have
(
′ 1 i=j
gij = δij = (70)
0 i 6= j
Definition The metric gij (z) is called pseudo-euclidean if it exists a system of coordinates (x1 , · · · , xn ),
k
∂xk
with xi = xi (z 1 , · · · , z n ) and det(J) 6= 0, gij = ∂x
∂z i ∂z j , such that in these coordinates we have

1
 for i ≤ p (i = j)
′
gij = δij = −1 for p + 1 ≤ i ≤ p + q = n (i = j) (71)

0 i 6= j

The space where such a metric is defined is called Pseudo Euclidean and it is labeled with Rnp,q . We will
call Minkowski space, a pseudo euclidean space R41,3 , with metric
 
1 0 0 0
0 −1 0 0
gij = 
 . (72)
0 0 −1 0 
0 0 0 −1
In pseudo-euclidean coordinates we have
|ξ| = gij ξ i ξ j = (ξ 1 )2 + · · · + (ξ p )2 − (ξ p+1 )2 − · · · − (ξ n )2 . (73)
We can extend the notion of metric tensor also to covariant vectors. We have
−1
ξ1 = J t η1 , (74)
−1
ξ2 = J t

η2 , (75)
or, in components
∂z j
ξ1,i = η1,j , (76)
∂xi
∂z j
ξ2,i = η2,j , (77)
∂xi
where ξ1 and ξ2 are two vectors in the euclidean coordinate system (x1 , · · · , xn ), while η1 and η2 the
same vectors in the system (z 1 , · · · , z n ), such that xi = xi (z 1 , · · · , z n ) and det(J) 6= 0. Therefore,
∂z j ∂z k
(ξ1 , ξ2 ) = ξ1,i ξ1,i = η1,j η1,k = g jk η1,j η1,k . (78)
∂xi ∂xi
In order to understand how g ij transform under change of coordinate system, let us introduce another
coordinate system (y 1 , · · · , y n ) such that z i = z i (y 1 , · · · , y n ) and det(J) 6= 0. We have
∂y j
η1,i = ζ1,j , (79)
∂z i
∂y j
η2,i = ζ2,j , (80)
∂z i
8
and therefore
∂y l jk ∂y r
g jk η1,j η2,k = g ζ1,l ζ2,r , (81)
∂z j ∂z k
and, finally
∂y l jk ∂y r
g ′lr = g . (82)
∂z j ∂z k
A quantity that transforms as in Eq. (82) is called contravariant tensor of rank 2.
Theorem We have g ij = {gij }−1 .

In fact, let us look at the transformation rules in a matrix form. If we define the covariant metric
tensor as gc and the contravariant metric tensor as g c , we have
gc′ = J t gc J , (83)
h it
−1 −1
g ′c = Jt gc J t . (84)
h it
−1
However (J t ) = J −1 and therefore
−1
g ′c = J −1 g c J t . (85)
From Eq. (83) we have
−1 −1
Jt
−1
(gc′ ) = J −1 (gc ) (86)
and therefore we find
g c = (gc )−1 . (87)
In components we have
gij g jk = gik = δik = g ij gjk = gki , (88)
where δik id the Kronecker delta (and therefore we do not have to distinguish between upper or lower
indices).
Mixed Tensors
Let us suppose now that in every point of our space, with coordinates (x1 , · · · , xn ), is defined a linear
operator A(x). If ξ is a vector in x, we have
η i = aij (x) ξ j (89)
and for the covariant vectors
ηj = aij (x) ξi . (90)
1 n
If we introduce now, in the neighbourhood of x a new system of coordinates (z , · · · , z ) such that
xi = xi (z), we will have
∂xi ′j ∂xi
ηi = j
η , ξ i = j ξ ′j (91)
∂z ∂z
and
∂z i ′ ∂z i ′
ηj = ηi , ξj = ξ . (92)
∂x j ∂xj i
Because of Eq. (89) we have
∂xi ′k j
i ∂x ′l
η = a j ξ , (93)
∂z k ∂z l
from which
∂z k ∂xj i ′l
η ′k = a ξ = a′k ′l
l ξ . (94)
∂xi ∂z l j
Therefore
∂z k ∂xj i
a′k
l = a . (95)
∂xi ∂z l j
A quantity that transforms according to Eq. (95) is called mixed tensor of rank 2.
9
General definition
In general, we define a tensor of (p, q) type, of rank p + q, on a n-dimensional vector space, a collection of
np+q numbers, in a certain system of coordinates (x1 , · · · , xn ), whose numerical expression depends on the
system of coordinate as follows: if (z 1 , · · · , z n ) is another system of coordinates and xi = xi (z 1 , · · · , z n )
we have
i ,··· ,i ∂xi1 ∂xip ∂z l1 ∂z lq ′k1 ,··· ,kp
Tj11,··· ,jqp = · · · , · · · T . (96)
∂z k1 ∂z kp ∂xj1 ∂xjq l1 ,··· ,lq
Since det(J) 6= 0, the relation (96) can be inverted:
′k ,··· ,kp ∂z k1 ∂z kp ∂xj1 ∂xjq i ,··· ,i

1
Tl1 ,··· ,lq = i
· · · ip , l1 · · · lq Tj11,··· ,jqp . (97)
∂x 1 ∂x ∂z ∂z
In every point of the space, (p, q) tensors form a linear space.
10
Tensori
Propieties
If two tensors are equal, therefore all the components of the two tensors are equal
The importance of this property is that the equality is invariant under basis transfomation (in our
case under Lorentz transformazion). In fact, our goal is to express the physics law with tensors
Sum of tensors
To sum two tensors, they have to have the same rank
Product
Contraction
We saturate
We want all the laws to be tensors. Suppose we have this relation
If we move to another inertial frame

Now we move directly to the Minkowski space. It has a pseudo-euclidian metric
Which one has the "-" is just a convection
This is the reason why is not definite positive
Contravariant
Covariant
Lorentz transformation, boost

And this acts on the 4-vector
And since the square of the vector is an invariant
Relation between the boosts
Then just a note: the boost form a group, in the sense that it exists:
1. Identity:
2. The composition of two boosts is again a boost

Lezione 4 - 31/10/2020
domenica 11 ottobre 2020 12:44
Now let us go back to the Lorentz transformations and let us have a closer look to the structure of the
group. What we found is:
Boost
There are another kind of transformatons that belong to the same class
Buy you can

also have
We can go back to the boost by a rotation . This rotation should not affect the physics (it is
a rigid rotation). This means that this kind of transformation can be written in terms of boost
But they have also a component that is something like:
It does not
affect the time is preserved in
this kind of
transformations
It preserves
the lenght of
the 3-vector
is part of the Lorentz group

So the Lorentz group of composed of:
• Rigid rotations
• Boosts
As we walready said, the basic relation that define the Lorentz transformations come from the fact
that is an invariant
Is given: it is the metric of the space we are

considering
We find
This relation
We checked that L.T. form a group by

Lezione 5 1/10/2021
Properties of the infinitesimal transformation
We introduced last time the POINCARÉ GROUP
Rigid displacement
L.T.
And then we have seen we have a subgroup which is continuously connected to the identity, so it
means that is such that if you take a L.T. and let the parameters you recover the identity
This is not possible for the other transformations of the L.G.
Let's consider the PROPER ORTHOCRONUS GROUP. We can consider infinitesimal transformations
(Something that goes with your parameter to zero at the first order in your parameter), this gives
you access to the algebra of the group.
This means that Rank 2 tensor
Let's consider this
But this is
second order
Remember to put
the indices down
Bigger order terms
So the tensor is an anti-symmetric tensor. It means that if we have an space you have
independent components. In this case you have six: 3 for the rotation and 3 for the boost.
The Poincaré group has 10 parameters: the 6 we mentioned before + 4 of the traslation.

Dynamics of a classical free particle and covariant quantities
Let us take an example (free particle) and let us see how we can move from classical Newtonian
mechanics into something that can describe in a covariant way the classical mechanics of the
particle. So we need to move from 3- to 4-vectors. And, of course, we have to require that when
we have to find again Newtonian mechanics. In order to do that we define, in New. Mech.:
4-vector
Velocity We try Not a good choice
But this should
be an invariant
and it is not
We want to write a law that connects two 4-vectors, like:

Since is not an invariant, we can try with:
That we know it is an invariant. So we move to a reference system in which the particle is at rest
The space part is zero
What we find is that in that reference system we simply have to measure the time.
This is an invariant called PROPER TIME
Since it is an invariant, we can use it in the place of . So a proper 4-vector that generalize the
velocity is defined by:
It is a time-like vector
Its temporal and space component are:
We can see it is a time like vector
We can go on with this game and find the acceleration
The 4-acceleration is ORTHOGONAL to the 4-velocity

The last thing to generalize is the four momentum
FOUR MOMENTUM
This is a time-like vector too
MASS SHELL RELATION
But also
We will have a look to the Lagrangian of the free particle and we will see that .
Concerning the Langrangian we will not see now how it comes out (we will see it later), but you
should remember its form.
And then we can move to the Hamiltonian
We can notice that from this eq. we can get the Einstein relation
New thing! The relation energy

momentum is
quadratic!
Let us move to the Lagrangian description of mechanics. Let us do a couple of calculation

concerning the free particle in classical mechanics (the point-like particle). Then we will repeat the
same thing for the field. Now, following the formalization of classical mechanics that ended up with
analytical mechanics, we ended up with two ways to describe the same mechanics, but they show
two different points of view according to what we want to study.
• Lagrangian Symmetries of the theory
• Hamiltonian Canonical quantization ("alla Dirac")
We will do the same, starting from the Lagrangian and then will use the Hamiltonian approach to do
the canonical quantization of our fields. We remember that everything can be extracted using
Hamilton principles; so what we have, in the case of a point like particle.
It depends on the system you are studying:

• close system
• not close system
Then we can define a functional called ACTION.

Lezione 6 - 07/10/2021
We want to understand what is

Least Action Principle
Let us move to the Lagrangian description of mechanics.

Nota:
World line aka

motion of the
particle
We impose that equation of motion

motion of the
particle
We impose that equation of motion
Nota:

Total variation: depends both
on the functional form and
the point in which you
evaluate your function
Let us keep the function form of the Lagrangian the same even if
in principle they can differe by a total derivative with respect to
If we write an expansion at first order

Keeping just I order
What are these two pieces?
Local variation
The same function evaluated in two slightly

different points (aka the incremental ratio)
We have already a first order term I can write

in terms of a
local variation

The same function evaluated in two slightly
different points (aka the incremental ratio)
The local variation (at the same ) and the derivatives

act on two different spaces, therefore we can
exchange and
(invariance under riparametrization)
If impose that the solution is the classical solution

If impose that the solution is the classical solution
Then since
It has to be an homogeneous function of the first degree in We are in Minkowski space, this has to
be a scalar, so it cannot be alone, but it has to be contracted. This also tell you that the canonical
hamiltonian is zero. There is a probelm to define the conjugate momentum as , the problem is
that the transformation has to be invertible, but the lagrangian is singular.
Relativistic free particle

Let us write the free particle Lagrangian. So, in order to fulfill also , what we can write down is:
The index should be contracted because the all

thing must be a Lorentz invariant
we will
We could have done it from the beginning: We already know

that for a particle in relativistic mechanics the geodesic is
the straight line. Therefore we have to integrate in the

Conservation laws
Lagrangian invariant under Poincare' transformation and conservation
of the four-momentum and angular momentum
The global variation coincide with the local variation
Somma e sottrai

Somma e sottrai
I take a solution of the equation of motion
Moving to
infinitesimal
transformation
I know is an
antisymmetric tensor,
therefor it can be written as

4 parameters

Lezione 7 08/10/2021
Lagrangian formalism for fields
Let’s move to more “extended” systems i e instead of consider a point like particle, we will
consider a local function of space-time points ———> Fields
Note: fields can have different characteristics depending on the situation, for instance it can
be a scalar field or a vector field
From our point of view, the reason why we want to use these mathematical objects is the
following:
Let’s consider the Electrodynamics (classical ED) as the correct description, i.e. we know that
using ED also point like particles, namely the photons, have an “extended” representation as
a field (they behave like a wave), and we already know that this description works. Now we
want to apply a similar framework also to matter in order to have on the same ground both
classical ED (Maxwell equations) and the equations for the matter field at the classical level.
Once we have all the physics on the same ground we can quantize (second quantization)
Since the Lagrangian depends on , then it will be a functional of
Note: for the moment is a generic index, later we will see that it can be a label for different
fields, or a Lorentz index
In principle the Lagrangian can depend on all derivative orders of . Nevertheless, we will
consider only the first order since usually the equation of motion contains derivatives at most
at the second order
Once we define the action , we can develop the same arguments as in the case of
point-like particle:
must be invariant under Poincaré transformation

We know that the Lagrangian is a local functional of local functions, so it depends in some
ways on the space point. In this kind of situation it is useful to introduce a density, in this case
a Lagrangian density that will became the basic object we deal with
Lagrangian density
Note: the Lagrangian density in the description of point-like particle is a delta function

is already invariant
Now the only condition we require is that the Lagrangian density is an invariant.
One consequence of this request is the fact that has to be a scalar, then the four vectors
that appear in the Lagrangian density has to be in the this form
We can require an additional condition for : in order to be Poincaré invariant has to

depend from only through the fields
Since we will need the Hamiltonian of the system in order to quantize, let us define
it Hamiltonian
density
Note: in this case the derivative of is respect to time and not the proper time .
We can do this because is already invariant under Poin transf ( wasn’t)
Euler-Lagrange equations

The Lagrangian (then also the Lagr. density) is not unique for a given equation of motion and a
certain set of transformations under which it is invariant. We can change a bit the Lagrangian
and this variation has to be such that the eq.s of motion remain untouched:
We chose a divergence as extra term in order to obtain a surface term when we integrate
to get the action. Therefore we have to choose either something that goes to zero on the
surface or a constant

Lezione 8 12/10/2021
SYMMETRIES AND NÖTHER THEOREM

SYMMETRIES OF A SYSTEM
Let’s suppose that the system is described by a Lagrangian density of this kind
And let’s consider a generic transformation such that
We are particularly interested in those

transformations that leave the action
unchanged i.e. transformations that do not
change the eq.s of motion. Therefore such a
transformation doesn’t change the physics of
the system
A transformation that leave the action unchanged is called symmetry
Note: if the transformation leaves the Lagrangian density unchanged then also the action
will be unchanged (this is a less general condition, we have already seen that the
action can remain the same also if we change a bit the Lagrangian density)
Considering a generic transformation, one kind of distinction we can make is:
• Geometric transformation: a transformation that act on the point , for example a

rotation, Lorentz and Poincaré transf. etc…
• Internal transformation: a transformation that affect the functional form of the field
And then we can also define the geometric symmetry and the internal symmetry
Concerning geometric transformations we have to point out how they act on fields.
Indeed, if we transform the points, then we induce also a change in fields according
to the new configuration, for instance:
If field is scalar then it doesn’t change

If field is vectorial (e.g. a four vector) it transform with a Lorenz transf.
SYMMETRIES AND NÖTHER'S THEOREM Pagina 1

Note: Nöther’s theorem regards continuous transformations (see Lie group)
Nöther’s theorem:
For every continuous symmetry is associated a local conservation law i.e. a quantity which is a
constant of motion.
The conserved quantities are connected to the parameters of the transformation (e.g two
parameter of the transf. —> two conserved quantities)
Parameters can be:

• Independent on the space-time point —> Global transformation (global symmetry)
• Dependent on the space-time point —> Local transformation (local symmetry)
Next step:
According to the fact that we will deal with continuous transformations (i.e. transf. that
continuously goes to the identity ), let’s define the variation of the field in this framework
It takes into account

both the change of the
point and the functional
variation of the field
This argument works also for the Lagrangian density:

Now let’s impose the condition (the transf. is a symmetry)
Transformation of the elementary volume: we need
Property:
We want that the variation of the Lagr. density doesn’t change the eq.s of motion. In order to
make this we suppose that it is a total derivative of a function (according to Hamilton principle)
Note: in all the cases we are interested in

We will consider in any case , since we will also consider fields
that that go sufficiently fast to zero at infinity All the surface terms are zero
Geometric symmetries: the case of Lorentz and Poincaré

transformation
We are looking at the particular case of geometric symmetries, since we are interested in having a
theory that is invariant under Lorentz and Poincaré transformations
Let’s consider the following infinitesimal transformation:
If we have invariance under Lorentz transformations then we would expect 6 independent charges
we are considering in any case the Lorentz subgroup (proper orthocronus) which is connected
to the identity in a continuous way
Note: depends on the representation
i.e. the kind of fields you are considering
in the theory (scalar, 4vector…)
where are the 6 generators of the Lorentz group in the representation that we are considering

Let’s see what happen to in the case of Lorentz transformations
Energy-momentum tensor
Note: when we write something like I have to remember that is not a Lorentz index,
despite the covariant/contra variant notation

Lezione 9 14/10/2021
We are going to apply all the machinery we constructed. We found a current, therefore a quantity
that is conserved
The four-vector is connected to
 the Lagrangian density;
 the derivative of the Lagrangian density;
 And the variation of the field
Variation in Variation of the We neglect high order terms

form of the point in the connected to the (small) variation
field Minkowski space in form of the Lagrangian
We will see only transformations that leave unchanged the Lagrangian (and therefore also the
action, but the opposite is not true). This is a more restrictive case, but we will get back to that.
So if this is the current, which is conserved in the sense that we have a continuity equation that
governs the current we wrote, we can immediately find that there is a conserved quantity, a
constant of motion. This quantity is the so called:
CHARGE
This is also connected to the electromagnetic charge, which is something that comes from an
invariance of the Lagrangian under a redefinition of the fields.
INVARIANCE UNDER LORENTZ TRANSFORMATION

Now let us see which are the charges according to different kinds of transformations/symmetries
that we can have. For instance, let us consider a geometrical transformation that affects the point,
in particular: a Lorentz transformation
Infinitesimal
transformation
We are considering infinitesimal transformations. We already discuss the infinitesimal limit of in
the case of a proper orthochronus Lorentz group elements. The Lorentz group (LG) is a Lie group
(which is connected to the identity in a smooth way and so on). We studied parity and time reversal
(TR) apart and the three of them give you the access to all the possible Lorentz transformation via a
simple multiplication. So if we know how it works for proper orthochronus LG and parity and TR, we
know everything about the Lie group. For the moment we are considering the part of the group
which is smoothly directly connected to the identity, in such a way we can define our infinitesimal
transformation.
According to this, what we can have is a transformation of the field, which is inherited by the LT
that are acting on my sistem. The transformed field depends on the nature of the field. In other
words, according to what we would like to describe on my theory. For example to describe an
electron, we have to use a spinorial representation of the LG, because the electron has the spin.
Also the representation has to

go back smoothly to the identity
The transformation according to the LG in the representation space
comes via an operator that act on the field.

This is such that if you let it act on your field, you have back the field itself plus the operator
that act on the field. So the total variation of the field is
This is the spin If your field is a scalar this
structure of your field is zero
(nell’ esempio
dell’elettrone (??))
This transformation is written in a general form. We already know which is the conserved
quantity (charge), let’s see what happens when we apply this transf.
General form, the indices
depends on the representation:
can be Lorentz's ones or Dirac's
one
We want to stress the fact that the parameters are everywhere, so let us write it in such a way
that I can extract the parameters that are constant. Since the indeces are contracted, you can write
whatever symbol you want
Energy-momentum
tensor
A rank 2 tensor
is antisymmetric => the only non-
zero contribution is given by the
antisymm. part of
Connected to the Connected to this sort of vector product of with

structure/nature of the field something which is connected to the momentum
Generalization of the angular momentum
Therefore, since is anti-symmetric in , you have 6 indipendent objects for every value of ,
in total you have 24 different objects.
Therefore the charge is:
So you have six independents charges

Scalar field (i.e. ): conservation of 4-momentum
and angular momentum
This was general, now let us forget for a moment the dependence on the field and let us see a scalar
example with a rigid traslation (so not a LT, but the inhomogeneous part of the Poincaré group).
If this is the case
Now I go back to the definition of
If you write a is the same
Now we write the conservation law, factorizing out , which is a constant
This is the conserved charge, for evident reasons we put the symbol , since it is what we call THE
MOMENTUM of our sistem. In fact
TIME
SPACE
Momentum density
4 quantities (charges) that are conserved
Four translations in the four directions of the Minkowsky space
Now let us go back to what we wrote for the Lorentz transformations
And therefore the conserved quantities are

This is the
You can write if you want
Integral of
If we write down all the components just to see which ones are different from zero, what we find
is

We can see that it is a subspace of three independent objects that are repeated twice is a
dimensional matrix, which are exactly the components of the angular momentum.
This is what we would call the third component of the angular momentum
Just a remark: we wrote everything in terms of the Lagrangian density. Of course we can
reformulate it in Hamiltonian terms. If we have an observable
In quantum
Mechanics
We will ignore Quantum mechanical
the dependence Poisson brackets commutator
on time
Therefore if the transformation/object/operator, that acts on your Hilbert space, commutes with
the Hamiltonian, then it is a constant. So a conserved quantity has to commute with the
Hamiltonian.
Up to now we spoke about symmetries, i.e. transformations that leave the system unchanged.
Now, we want to specify what does “transformation” means from quantum mechanical point of
view. Let us consider a system with two states (with states we mean objects that live in a certain
space)
Transition amplitude: He will not write that
Transition probability:
Our physics is connected not to the transition amplitude, because it is not what we measure. We
measure the transition probability.
I consider a transformation that acts on my state
If is a symmetry, what we would like to have is:

How can this characterize this transformation? The immediate thing we can do is to remove the
module. This means that the transformation should be linear (to conserve the linearity of the
Hilbert space) and unitary
This is a possible realization of what we call a SYMMETRY. However this is not the only possibility;
another one is: since the module must be the same, we can require
Also this is a transformation that does not affect the physics of my system, therefore a SYMMETRY.
And this is done by anti-unitary anti-linear operators on the Hilbert space vectors.

ANTILINEAR OPERATOR
ANTIUNITARY OPERATOR
This is just to say that there is a theorem, due to Wigner, that says:
WIGNER'S THEOREM
For every transformation that satisfies we can define a
representation on the Hilbert space which is either
1. UNITARY and LINEAR
2. ANTIUNITARY and ANTILINEAR
However we can immediately notice that the trivial transformation is unitary and linear. So
if we think about symmetries transformations which have to continuously connect to the identity,
we would consider the unitary and linear transformation. The other way around is not true: parity is
unitary and linear, but is a discontinuos transformation.
LORENTZ AND POINCARÉ SYMMETRIES IN QFT

Now, where all these sentences point to is the structure of these kind transformation that we are
considering. And the structure is a well mathematical known structure: a group.
Group
A collection of objects that have to combine with a certain product (that we will define) and it has to
be closed under these operations.
The rules for this container of objects to be a group are
1. Associative property:
2. Existence of the identity:
3. Existence of the inverse:
If we have a group such that
Abelian group
Moreover we can define subgroups, maps (relationships between groups) and what is
called
HOMEOMORPHISM
It is a relationship between two groups such that
We consider the set of linear invertible transformations on a vector space, this is a group called
The linear group on
Vector space
Linear invertible transformation on

Representation of on is an homomorphism between and
Such that
And since it is an homomorphism it has to be such that
We can see that, the group is the abstract mathematical entity and when you want to come to
concrete things what we use is the same group structure but realized on a certain vector space (a
matrix or a linear operator for instance), so you know perfectly how to realize the structure of the
group in a concrete way.

Lezione 10 - 15/10/2021
Def: equivalent representations
Two representation of the same group G in general can be defined on
different spaces, let’s say respectively V and W.
and are equivalent if invertible, such that
Note: the operation is a sort of change of phase
Def: invariant subspace

A subspace S of V is called invariant under the representation if
Def: irreducible representation

A representation on a certain vector spaces is called irreducible if the vector
space on which it is constructed the representation does not have invariant subspaces
(i.e. the subspace coincide with the whole vector space)
Obs: a reducible representation can be written as the sum of irreducible representations.

e.g. in the case of a matrix representation, with and irreducible representations
of the group, we can write the total matrix in a diagonal form
Def: Lie group

A Lie group a is group whose elements depend in a continuous and differentiable way on
a set of parameters with a=1, ,N
i.e. where is continuous and differentiable
N.B.: one of the element of the group is the identity , therefore we can set the
parameters such that
Each element of the group is continuously connected to the identity
Def: Compact Lie group

A compact Lie group is a Lie group in which the parameters vary over a closed interval

Lie Algebra
Once we have a Lie group, we can define a Lie Algebra. We will see that this structure is very
important, since it allows us to find the so called generators of the group. By these objects, it
is possible to calculate all the elements of the group, since the Lie Algebra gives us the
relations between the generators and the elements of the group.
N.B.: the Lie Algebra is something that is related only to the structure of the group,
therefore it does not depend on the representation of the group.
Note: in the following we will use a “practical approach”, in the sense that we will
derive some facts using a representation . However, when we deal with
groups it is not mandatory to use a representation.
Since the elements of a Lie group are continuously connected to the identity, we. can think
about an infinitesimal transformation
where is an operator
Example: in the case of Lorentz transformations the parameter is the velocity. As soon as the
velocity becomes small, the transformation becomes infinitesimal. Note that the
matrix we used as a Lorentz transformation is already a representation of the
Lorentz group.
N.B.: the form we gave to is arbitrary. In particular we put the imaginary unit in the
second term just because when we study unitary representations we have that it must be
Hermitian and therefore is connected to an observable in quantum mechanics
From the equation we can find that:
Generator of the group

Now we want to find the form of the representation and its relation with the generator .
Since is a representation of the group, it must conserve its structure. Therefore
Note: calculation will be done with simplified notation
initial condition
N.B.: the exponential form of such relation comes from the local structure of the group i.e.
It is continuous and differentiable;
It goes to 1 when goes to zero.
However we am not considering any constraint (i.e. global relation)
(e.g. in the case of rotation we have to impose that a rotation of goes to the identity)
N.B.: is a unitary representation
“Theorem”: it is possible to prove (but we will not) that once you know a relation for , we
can obtain all the elements of the representation. Therefore:
If we know the generators I know the representation
N.B.: We wrote the equation thinking about a certain representation. However, such
relation can be extracted in a different way, independently from the representation we
are considering. Therefore, this structure can be found for all the representation
Algebra of the group
Note: will depend on and
Neglect terms with order > 2

Neglect terms with order > 2
Index are contracted, we can

change label
Def:
must be proportional to , then we can write with constant
Algebra of the group
N.B.: we found such relation in a particular representation of the group, however it is

possible to show that the algebra of the group is independent from the representation
If we find the generators in a certain representation that fulfill this relation, we

obtain all the elements of such representation (using the exponential form )
Prop: if The group is Abelian
Note: in this case

(In the general case it is true only )

Lezione 11 - 19/10/2021
Recap Lie groups
representation of the group N.B.: the general structure of the group (i.e. what we
said in the last lecture) is independent from the
representation
This is an infinitesimal transformation, since the

elements of a Lie group are smoothly connected to
the identity
Parameters of the Lie group N.B.:
Generators of the group
The elements of the representation can be writte in an exponential form
(simple case with a single parameter )
N.B.:The exponential form keeps the local properties of the group, since it is the
exponentiation of the infinitesimal transformation. However, it might be necessary to
impose an additional property of the group that is not taken into account in the
exponential form
Once you individuate the generators of the group you have the Algebra of the group:
The commutator of two generators have to be written

in terms of a combination of the generator itself
Structure constants of the group
They are independent from the representation (unlike the generators).

If, by absurd, depended on
If the generators commute The group is abelian

In this case
Note:any d-dimensional Lie algebra is isomorphic the the sum of d1-dimensional

abelian Lie algebras.
All irreducible representations of abelian groups are 1-dimensional

Def: Casimir operator
The Casimir operator is an operator that commutes with all the generators of the Lie group
Casimir operator are the generators of SO
not a Casimir operator
Note: the casimir operator plays a key role in group theory because it
is directly connected to the identity by the Schur’s lemma
Lemma: Schur’s lemma

If is an irreducible representation of your Lie group On a vector space , and is a
Casimir operator (e.g. )
Dim(?): is written in terms of the generator with whom

(by definition) the Casimir operator commutes.
Note: in an abelian group all the generators commute with the other generators
all the generators are Casimir operators
all the generators are proportional to the identity
we can have only 1-dimensional representation
Def: Compact Lie group

A compact Lie group is a Lie group in which the parameters live in a closed set of R
(e.g. rotations)
NB: the Lorentz group is not compact, since the velocity (i.e. the parameter) cannot reach c
because v=c (or =1) is a discontinuity point of the transformation. Physically, this means
that you cannot jump on a reference frame that is on top of a photon, while this is possible
with massive particles
Theorem:
Non compact groups do not have a unitary representation
We spoke about unitary representations (of finite dimensions), since their generators are
hermitian, therefore they are connected to observables in quantum mechanics (e.g. energy,
momentum, angular momentum etc).
This is not true for finite dimensional unitary representation of groups that are not compact.
In this case, you can have a unitary representation, but only in infinite dimensional spaces, for
instance an Hilbert space, then you can have the momentum, energy etc.

Example: SO(2) group
The rotation must be s.t. the length of is untouched

For the moment, we do not study the irreducible representation, in fact the
representation we found has not the “correct” form. In fact, if you have invariant
subspaces on the vector space that you are considering, it is possible to have a
representation in the normal form in which you have irreducible representations on the
diagonal.
Since the abelian groups each generator commute with the other generators, we have that
the group has 1D irreducible representations.
Therefore, we expect that J is diagonal if we move to the correct basis.
J is hermitian, hence it can be written as a diagonal matrix with real elements, in other
words, we can find a basis such that we can immediately see the irreducible
representations, that in this case are two 1D objects on the diagonal

Left
Right

Lezione 12 - 21/10/2021
On Monday we were trying to characterise the Poincare's group. First, we need to understand how
the algebra is constructed. Therefore, we want to find the generators of the group and see how to
represent this abstract object (the group) in terms of, for instance, some operators in a vector
space.
We are doing this because:
1. We want to have a mathematical construction in order to describe the fields we will study. The
fields are the objects we want to use to describe nature in some way (quantum mechanical and
relativistic way), therefore these objects have to reproduce what happens in nature.
a. For instance we have the Maxwell field equations that can be written in terms of the
potentials, they transform under the Lorentz transformations according to the vector
representation of the Lorentz transformations (a Lorentz transformation itself).
b. Spin 1/2 particles: we need to describe them in terms of something that transforms
accordingly to the Lorentz group. Also we need to include the spin, if we look at the
representations of the Lorentz group, what we can find is a structure that gives you for
free the spin.
We are studying the complete inhomogeneous Lorentz group:
NB: POINCARÉ GROUP = ROTATION + TRANSLATION IN
In order study the algebra connected to this group we have to see infinitesimal transformations,
that are triggered by the generators of the group and then you can understand the algebra of these
generators. The generators form a vector space and they have to satisfy the algebra which is a
certain set of commutation rules.
Construction of the generators under a general Poincaré transformation
The infinitesimal transformation will be

written in terms of the generators
We want to understand what happens to this product of Poincaré transformation. Using the group
structure (composition of two LT), we can write directly
Now we write the infinitesimal transformation in terms of the generators
Generators of the four-dimensional rigid translation

Generators of the homogeneous proper orthochronus LG
Writing also the right hand side (RHS) of the equation in terms of the generators

The part proportional to can be written like
Since is antysimmetric, it
survives only the
antisymmetric part of
Done in the previous lecture
If you take the first order on on the RHS (and recall the indices) and LHS
= 0 if you consider just the LT
We find that the generators for the Lorentz transformation under Poincare's transformation act like
a rank two tensor plus an addition piece, that goes away if you consider just the LT.
The other piece gives us the transformation of , we clearly see it transforms like a fourvector
Now we want to understand how the algebra is constructed, which kind of relations these
generators have to fulfil. We do what we did in an abstract form a couple of lectures ago, we have
the transformations under Poincaré transformation, so we have to consider also as an
infinitesimal transformation. From the first law we get.
Taking just the

first order
We found some commutations relations which define these two relations of the algebra of the
Poincaré group. These are the one you get from the first transformation rule. Imposing the second
transformation we get

The three relations are
We have to antisimmetrize
First of all, this tells us immediately that the subgroup of rigid traslation is ABELIAN.
Now since we trying to study the quantum mechanics of my system, a special operator is played by
the operators that commute with the Hamiltonian, because as we seen these operators give rise to
conserved quantities. To see which are, we can write down ten independents objects that are
hidden in the equations above. The (four) generators of the traslation give us back immediately the
energy and momentum of the particle.
So to find which generators commute with the Hamiltonian, we need to find which ones commute
with the first component of
The space part of the momentum commute with the Hamiltonian. So the energy and the
momentum are conserved under Poincaré trasnformation
So the three angular momentum is conserved under Poincaré trasnformation
The operators of the boost do not commute with the Hamiltonian, therefore they are not conserved
under Poincaré's trasnformation. This is why we cannot label a boost quantum number.
We can also wite down
Generators of 3D
space rotations
Conserved
quantities
The algebra of the boost is not closed

The translations constitute an abelian subgroup of the Poincaré group. So if we have a translation
we can write independently a Poincaré transformation that act only in the traslation and a rotation
in the direction , both in exponential form
In general, we can write down the general structure of the Poincaré transformation as:
Now we can recast the relations in order to understand better this structure.
We can redefine the parameters, i.e. we can write (according to what we understood) in a basis
such that we can recognise the rotation and the boost
In order to have a look the irreducible representations, to make in such a way we know how to
represent the group, it is important to know the Casimir operators of the algebra you are
considering. The Poincaré algebra has two Casimir operators (we will not demonstrate that these
are Casimir's)
We can redefine and (equivalent to use a new bases), performing an operation called
complexification
The two new Casimir's are
We split the algebra that you have in the direct sum/product of two SO2 independent algebras.
It is Hermitian, therefore it can be connected to a unitary transformation
It is antihermitian

This is the general structure of the group, now let us go back to the fields. The fields we will
consider have a certain structure under Poincaré transformation.
In general, a field has the following structure
We would like to have something that transforms as:
Finite dimensional representation of the LG
Transformation on the structure of the field
We will have to deal with three kind of fields

1. Scalar fields, it has no internal structure (candidate to describe particle with spin=0)
2. Vector field
We can construct the generators in a traditional way
Remember, the generators are given by the relation

You could move directly from the definition of your

Lezione 13 - 22/10/2021
We have already seen two representations of the Lorentz group:
Scalar representation:
Vector representation:
Tensorial representation, we will not see this type of fields)

Lezione 14 - 26/10/2021
Recap
We would like to construct a field theory (for the moment using classical fields).
When we will move to a quantum picture we will have states in a certain Hilbert space (that
correspond to the particles states), but in a consistent way with the special relativity.
In order to realise this states, we need a certain theoretical construction, for example a Lagrangian
written in terms of fields. This object has to have certain properties under certain transformations,
for instance we would like to have something that is invariant under Poincarè transformation
(since the space is homogeneous and isotropic), in such a way that the equation of motion are
covariant (i.e. they don’t change in form when you change the inertial frame).
Moreover, we would like to describe particle with different characteristics and we will do it by
using field that transform in a certain way under Poincarè transformation.
In particular, we have a global transformation i.e. that is connected to the spin
structure of the field we are considering, therefore such transformation goes with a finite
dimensional representation of the Lorentz group.
This means that we will have fields that will represent (after the quantization):
• Particles without spin and charge (real scalar field)
• Particles without spin and with charge (complex scalar field)
• Objects that transform like a vector (not in the Lorentz sense, but in the sense of a collection
of scalar(?) fields) finite dimensional representation of the Lorentz group:
is the representation of the Lorentz group in a certain
vector space)
What we did was trying to understand which kind of representation we have and how to move to a
bases in which we have an irreducible representation, i.e. a representation in which we can make
evident all the subspaces that are invariant under this kind of transformation (Poincarè (?)).
In order to do this we have to find the Casimir operators of the group i.e. operators made out of
the generators of the group and, for this reason, commutes with all of them.
Usual procedure:
• We have certain group
• We study the algebra of the group, because the algebra is a vector space, therefore it is easier
to study the algebra than studying directly the abstract group
• We find the generators of the algebra, in this way we know all the local properties of the
group (but not the global constraints, e.g. in SO : rotation of 2 identity)
• We represent the generators in a certain finite dimensional vector space
• We find the Casimir operators of the algebra (e.g. in SU the Casimir is , since it
commutes with all the )
• In the irreducible representation we have the Shur’s Lemma that tells us that the Casimir is
proportional to the identity, therefore we have the eigenvalues of the Casimir.
You can label your irreducible representation with that number, and then have a look to all
the other generators that commute with the Casimir. For instance, we can take and this can
tell us something more about the dimensionality of the irreducible representation
(e.g. matrices; scalar)

Case of the Lorentz group:
We find that the Lorentz group has six generators and that the algebra can be diagonalized
substituting and with a complex representation:
Using such generators we move to a direct product of algebras, hence the Lorentz group
locally behaves like a . These two independent algebras commute with the usual
rules of the momentum ,
and the Casimir operators of the two algebras are respectively and .
At this point we can label the two irreducible representations of the group with quantum numbers
( where is the total spin of one representation and the total spin of the other. If
we try to go back to and we realise that is hermitian and its representation is an actual ,
while is antihermitian; for this reason we keep and since they are both hermitian.
Now we can define different representations of the Lorentz group according to the labelling (
• Scalar (0,0)
• Spin or , : in both cases what changes is
For this reason we have two kinds of doublets (left spinor and right spinor) on which the
generators act, that correspond to the two irreducible representations.
It is important to highlight that these two representations are not equivalent, therefore there
is not any one to one correspondence between them.
We can move from one to the other representation by applying parity, so if we want a theory
that conserves parity (i.e. something that is an eigenvector of the parity) we have to move to a
reducible representation in which we use the so called Dirac spinor
In this representation, we have two diagonal blocks that independently act on and
However, what we will do (when we will introduce the Dirac equation) is to reshuffle this
representation and obtain a 4-dimensional representation in which we do not directly see the
two 2D irreducible representations (poi in qualche modo si torna in una forma diagonale, ma
non ho capito).
• Vector or (0,1): in this case we can go on with the tensor representation, starting
from the vector representation (that is the fundamental one), so we work with the 4-potential
We want to write down the generators in this representation:

We would like to have unitary representations, in fact, from a quantum mechanical point of view,
we want (i.e. what we actually measure) to be independent from the inertial frame.
However, we can have something that doesn’t touch the probability, but affect the transition
amplitude, since this one is not physical. Therefore, the transformation can be unitary and linear
or antiunitary and antilinear, in order to have an independent .
If we deal with continuous transformations, i.e. continuously connected to the identity that is
unitary, we must be in the first case. However, in the case of discontinuous transformations (e.g.
parity or time reversal) we can have an anti unitary and antilinear representation of the
symmetry (for instance, this is the case of time reversal).
Infinite dimensional representations:

Up to now, we discussed about finite dimensional representations of the Poincarè group. We
have also seen that in this case we cannot find a unitary representation, since part of the
generators are not hermitian (e.g. the boosts are antihermitian).
Solution: lecture 11, theorem at the bottom of the second page.
Hence, in order to have a unitary representation of a non-compact group, we have to move to
infinite dimensional representation.
This is connected to the fact that we will move from spinors to quantum states, i.e. object that
live in an Hilbert space that is infinite dimensional.
In other words, we are imposing the invariance of something that belongs to .
So, the symmetries of our theory have a representation in this infinite dimensional space,
therefore they can be chosen to be unitary, such that the generators are hermitian, i.e.
connected to observables.
Let’s consider a scalar field:
This is connected with the fact that is a function of , i.e. is a infinite dimensional
object, not to the structure of the field.
Let’s consider the case if a Lorentz transformation:

Representation of one particle states
Our goal is to find an irreducible representation of the Poincarè group on the quantum physical
states. Once we move to the Poincarè group we consider also the generators of space-time
traslations, since such generators play a special role inside the Poincarè group (they commute
among them, [ ]=0) . In order to do this, we have to describe our state in terms of minimal
observables, i.e. a certain number of operators that give you the correct quantum numbers for the
description of our state.
Free particle plane wave eigenstate of the momentum :

In order to find the irreducible representations we have to find the other observables (that
describe the state (?)), and these come from the Casimir operators
Commutes with all the generators of the

Poincaré group

Parity and Time Reversal
We have already said that the representation of the Poincarè group can be either unitary and
linear or antiunitary and antilinear. This last option actually happens in the case of time
reversal.
How do and act on the generators of the Poincarè group?

Notes on
RELATIVISTIC
QUANTUM MECHANICS
Roberto Bonciani1
00185 Roma

0.1 Formalismo Lagrangiano
Una volta esaminato il comportamento dei campi sotto trasformazioni del Gruppo di Lorentz, bisogna
cominciare a costruire la teoria che abbia per costituenti fondamentali tali campi.
È molto utile sviluppare tale teoria nel formalismo lagrangiano, sia perché questo permette di trattare
più facilmente le simmetrie e le leggi di conservazioni, sia perché il principio di minima azione di Hamilton
dà un approccio matematicamente più elegante e potente.
Considereremo quindi il caso in cui il nostro sistema sia descrivibile tramite una lagrangiana, L,
funzione locale dei campi, delle loro derivate e del punto X µ dello spazio-tempo. La richiesta di località
della lagrangiana è determinata dalla necessità che le quantità fisiche che tramite essa definiremo siano
delle osservabili (Principio di Causalità). Inoltre, altre richieste determineranno in maniera più esatta la
forma funzionale di L.
Prima di tutto, avendo cominciato la costruzione di una teoria quantistica dei campi per inglobare la
teoria della relatività, assente nella vecchia MQ, la lagrangiana dovrà essere tale che l’azione, S = dt L,
R
sia invariante sotto trasformazioni di Lorentz, ovvero sia uno scalare. Vogliamo, infatti, che la fisica non
dipenda dal particolare sistema di riferimento inerziale in cui è sviluppata.
(n)
Se la lagrangiana è L = L(φi (X), ∂µ φi (X), ..., ∂µ φi (X), Xµ ), possiamo definire una densità di
lagrangiana, L, in modo tale che:
Z
L= L(φi (X), ∂µ φi (X), ..., ∂µ(n) φi (X)Xµ ) d3 X . (1)
V
L’azione, S(V ), allora sarà data da:

Z t2 Z t2 Z
S(V ) = Ldt = L(φi (X), ∂µ φi (X), ..., ∂µ(n) φi (X)Xµ ) d4 X . (2)
t1 t1 V
Quindi, siccome S deve essere uno scalare di Lorentz e l’elemento di volume d4 X effettivamente lo
è, anche la densità di lagrangiana dovrà essere uno scalare. Questo vuol dire, per esempio, che se in L
deve comparire la derivata prima dei campi, ∂µ φi (X), questa non potrà comparire da sola, ma sempre in
espressioni contratte, del tipo ∂µ φi ∂ µ φj .
La richiesta di località e di Lorentz-invarianza non sono le sole da imporre alla densità di lagrangia-
na per avere una teoria consistente. A seconda della necessità, ovvero dei requisiti che la teoria deve
possedere, potremo richiedere altre limitazioni.
Per esempio:
• Per evitare problemi nell’interpretazione probabilistica della teoria, l’azione dovrà essere un funzio-
nale reale e lo stesso la densità di lagrangiana. Inoltre, in L non potranno comparire derivate di
ordine superiore al primo, così da portare ad equazioni di moto al massimo del secondo ordine:
L = L(φi (X), ∂µ φi (X), Xµ ) . (3)
• Se si ritiene che la teoria debba essere invariante sotto traslazioni spazio-temporali, per esempio, si
può richiedere che L non dipenda esplicitamente da X µ .
• Se abbiamo ragioni di credere che la teoria debba essere invariante sotto certe trasformazioni interne,
ci dovremo regolare di conseguenza. Questo è il caso delle teorie di gauge, dove addirittura la forma
della densità di lagrangiana viene dedotta postulando l’invarianza sotto trasformazioni di gauge;
e così via.
In generale lavoreremo con densità di lagrangiana del tipo:
L = L(φi , ∂µ φi ) , (4)
dove l’indice i dei campi φi può assumere valore di indice di Lorentz o di semplice etichetta a seconda
dei casi (lo specificheremo via via).
2
Una volta definita la densità di lagrangiana, potremo definire gli impulsi coniugati dei campi φi (X),
Πi (X), che entreranno nelle regole di quantizzazione canonica, come:
∂L
Πi (X) = (5)
∂ φ̇i
e tramite questi, la densità di hamiltoniana, H, tramite una trasformata di Legendre:
X
H = Πi φ̇i − L , (6)
i
che coincide con la densità di energia del sistema.
0.2 Principio di Hamilton ed Equazioni di moto per i campi

Una volta individuata la densità di lagrangiana e, tramite questa, l’azione S(V ), potremo trovare le
equazioni di moto per i campi φi imponendo il Principio di Hamilton.
Richiederemo dunque che:
δS = 0 , (7)
cioè che l’azione sia stazionaria sulle variazioni δφi (X), che dovranno essere le analoghe delle variazioni
ad estremi fissi, incontrate in meccanica analitica del punto materiale.
Nel nostro caso, abbiamo a che fare con una integrazione sul volume spaziale V ed una sul tempo, fra
i due estremi t1 e t2 (che possono essere anche ±∞). Quindi, se Σ è la superficie che delimita il volume
di integrazione, le nostre variazioni saranno tali che:
δφ(x, t) = 0 se x ∈ Σ (8)
δφ(x, t1 ) = δφ(x, t2 ) = 0 per ogni x ∈ V . (9)
Avremo:
Z
∂L ∂L
0 = δS = d4 X δφi + δφi,µ = (10)
∂φi ∂φi,µ
Z Z
4 ∂L ∂L
4 ∂L
= d X − ∂µ δφi + d X ∂µ δφi = (11)
∂φi ∂φi,µ ∂φi
Z
∂L ∂L
= d4 X − ∂µ δφi , (12)
∂φi ∂φi,µ
dove per passare dalla (10) alla (11) abbiamo integrato per parti e per passare dalla (11) alla (12) abbiamo
sfruttato l’annullarsi delle variazioni dei campi agli estremi del dominio d’integrazione.
Per l’arbitrarietà del δφi , l’Eq. (12) porta alle equazioni di Eulero-Lagrange, espresse in termini di
campi:
∂L ∂L
− ∂µ = 0. (13)
∂φi ∂φi,µ
È da notare che L è determinata a meno di una quadridivergenza. Infatti, se L porta alle equazioni
del moto (13), anche L′ = L + ∂µ Λµ (X) porta alle stesse equazioni, poiché l’azione risulterà invariata
dall’aggiunta del termine ∂µ Λ(X), con Λ(X) che si annulli sul contorno del dominio d’integrazione.
0.3 Simmetrie globali e Teorema di Nöether

Abbiamo visto come, nel formalismo lagrangiano, si facciano derivare le equazioni del moto dal Principio
variazionale di Hamilton. Supporremo quindi che il nostro sistema fisico sia descritto da una densità di
lagrangiana, funzione locale dei campi e al massimo delle loro derivate prime. Aggiungeremo l’ipotesi
che L dipenda anche esplicitamente dal punto dello spazio-tempo X µ , anche se in realtà poi avremo a
3
che fare con lagrangiane indipendenti da X µ . Questo per necessità di formulare in maniera generale il
teorema di Nöether.
Supponiamo di operare sul sistema una generica trasformazione. A livello matematico ciò si tradurrà
in una trasformazione sull’azione, S(V ), che coinvolga X µ , φi (X) e L.
Hanno particolare interesse le trasformazioni che lasciano invariata la “fisica” del problema, cioè che
permettano di avere le stesse ampiezze di transizione e quindi, in ultima analisi, le stesse equazioni del
moto. Trasformazioni di questo genere vengono dette simmetrie del sistema e generalmente hanno
struttura di gruppo.
Se scriviamo una trasformazione generica come segue:

µ
 X

 −→ X ′µ = X µ + δX µ
φi (X) −→ φ̃i (X ′ ) (14)
−→ L̃ φ̃i (X ′ ), φ̃i,µ (X ′ ), X ′

 L

si avrà corrispondentemente:
Z
S(V ) −→ S ′ (V ′ ) = d4 X ′ L̃ φ̃i (X ′ ), φ̃i,µ (X ′ ), X ′ . (15)
V′
Le Eqs. (14) costituiscono una simmetria del sistema se si ha:
S ′ (V ′ ) = S(V ) . (16)
L’importanza del teorema di Nöether sta nel fatto che questo asserisce che ad ogni simmetria del
sistema viene associata una legge di conservazione locale, ovvero una quantità conservata, che possiamo
identificare quantisticamente come un’osservabile. Il numero delle quantità conservate è pari al numero
di parametri indipendenti da cui dipende la trasformazione (14). Quindi lo studio delle simmetrie del
sistema ci permette di fare un salto nella trattazione del problema e di individuare subito un certo numero
di osservabili.
È da notare che la richiesta (16) rappresenta la simmetria più generale possibile: non è detto che
non esistano delle simmetrie più limitate. Per esempio un certa trasformazione può lasciare invariata la
lagrangiana o la densità di lagrangiana e queste implicano a loro volta la (16). Consideriamo quindi il
caso generale e poi ci limiteremo ad alcuni casi più restrittivi.
Cominciamo col puntualizzare alcune cose a proposito delle (14).
Le trasformazioni che considereremo in questo paragrafo sono tutte trasformazioni infinitesime, alle
quali ci limitiamo perché stiamo considerando trasformazioni continue, il cui comportamento è deducibile
da quello nell’intorno dell’identità.
Queste trasformazioni possono agire sullo spazio-tempo, X µ → X ′µ , ed indurre quindi una corri-
spondente variazione sulla forma funzionale di φi , φi (X) → φ̃i (X ′ ) (simmetrie geometriche), ma possono
anche agire soltanto sulla forma funzionale φi , indipendentemente dal punto in cui essa è valutata (sim-
metrie interne). Quindi, la variazione del campo φi (X) comprende genericamente le due possibilità. Per
esempio, una trasformazione di Lorentz sullo spazio-tempo, cioè il passaggio da un sistema di riferimento
inerziale ad un altro nello studio della fisica di un problema, indurrà una conseguente trasformazione
sui campi dovuta alla diversa natura di questi: se si ha un campo scalare si avrà φ̃(X ′ ) = φ(X), men-
tre per un campo tensoriale o spinoriale la trasformazione X ′µ = Λµν X ν determinerà la trasformazione
φ′ (X ′ ) = S(Λ)φ(X) nelle rispettive rappresentazioni del gruppo. Oppure, senza trasformazioni dello
spazio-tempo, potremo pensare ad una simmetria sotto la ridefinizione dei campi φi .
Definiamo genericamente la variazione totale di φi (X) e L come segue:
∆φi (X) = φ̃i (X ′ ) − φi (X) ≃ (17)

µ
≃ φ̃i (X) + ∂µ φ̃i (X) δX − φi (X) ≃ (18)
≃ δφi (X) + ∂µ φi (X) δX µ , (19)
4
dove abbiamo posto δφi (X) = φ̃i (X) − φi (X), variazione in forma di φi e dove abbiamo sostituito φ̃i con
φi all’interno della derivazione fra (18) e (19), a meno di termini di ordine superiore al primo; inoltre:
∆L = L̃(φ̃i (X ′ )...) − L(φi (X), ...) = (20)
∂L ∂L
= δL(φi (X)...) + δφi + δφi,µ + ∂µ LδX µ , (21)
∂φi ∂φi,µ
dove δL è la variazione in forma della densità di lagrangiana ed il resto deriva dall’aver considerato φi (X),
φi,µ (X) e X µ come variabili indipendenti in L (in modo tale che ∆φi = δφi ).
Considerando le trasformazioni infinitesime, imporre la (16) equivale ad imporre:
Z Z
4 ′
0 = δS = d X L̃ − d4 X L . (22)
V′ V
Quindi, per poter procedere nel calcolo, dovremo riportare i due integrali allo stesso dominio d’inte-
grazione. Trasformando V ′ d4 X ′ in V d4 X dovremo tener conto dello jacobiano della trasformazione
R R
X µ → X ′µ = X µ + δX µ , (23)
ovvero di:
∂X ′µ
J = = 1 + ∂µ δX µ . (24)
∂X µ
Sostituendo nell’Eq. (22) e sviluppando al primo ordine, si ottiene:
Z n o
0 = d4 X (1 + ∂µ δX µ ) L̃ − L = (25)
ZV
4 ∂L ∂L µ µ
= d X δL + δφi + δφi,µ + ∂µ LδX + ∂µ δX L̃ = (26)
V ∂φi ∂φi,µ
Z (
∂L h ∂L i h ∂L i
≃ d4 X δL + δφi + ∂µ δφi − ∂µ δφi +
V ∂φi ∂φi,µ ∂φi,µ
)
+∂µ LδX µ + ∂µ δX µ L̃ = (27)
Z h ∂L i
4 µ
= d X δL + ∂µ δφi + L δX , (28)
V ∂φi,µ
dove per passare da (26) a (27) abbiamo integrato per parti e sostituito, a meno di infinitesimi superiori
al primo, L con L̃, e per passare da (27) a (28) abbiamo sfruttato le equazioni del moto.
Per l’arbitrarietà del d4 X, la (28) dà la seguente equazione:
h ∂L i
∂µ δφi + L δX µ = −δL . (29)
∂φi,µ
Consideriamo il termine δL.
Se la trasformazione è una simmetria, come abbiamo imposto, la variazione in forma della densità
di lagrangiana non può essere qualunque. Infatti, dovendo rimanere invariate le equazioni di moto, δL
potrà al massimo essere la quadridivergenza di una certa funzione δΩµ :
δL = ∂µ δΩµ , (30)
con δΩµ che si annulla sulla frontiera del dominio d’integrazione.
L’Eq. (29) diventa, allora, semplicemente un’equazione di continuità:
∂µ J µ = 0 , (31)
dove abbiamo definito la seguente quadricorrente:

∂L
Jµ = δφi + L δX µ + δΩµ . (32)
∂φi,µ
5
Se i campi φi e la funzione arbitraria δΩµ si annullano sulla frontiera del dominio d’integrazione, la
conservazione della corrente J µ , espressa dall’Eq. (31), porta alla conservazione della carica:
Z
Q = d3 X J 0 . (33)
V
Infatti, si ha: Z Z
dQ
= ∂0 d3 X J 0 = dΣ J · n = 0 , (34)
dt V ∂V
che implica:
Q = cost . (35)
È chiaro che, a seconda della trasformazione (o meglio a seconda di quanti parametri indipendenti
contiene la trasformazione) (14), avremo più correnti conservate e quindi più cariche conservate. Il numero
di queste dipende proprio dal numero di parametri indipendenti della trasformazione.
È da notare, inoltre, che se le simmetrie “di Nöether” formano un gruppo, l’algebra di questo gruppo
induce sulle cariche conservate la stessa algebra. In altre parole le cariche sono i generatori del gruppo
di trasformazioni considerato.
Andiamo, adesso, a vedere alcuni esempi.
0.3.1 Simmetrie geometriche. Trasformazioni di Lorentz

Consideriamo il caso in cui δΩµ = 0, cioè in cui la densità di lagrangiana viene lasciata invariata dalla
trasformazione, e operiamo una trasformazione di Lorentz infinitesima:
X ′µ = X µ + ǫµν Xν , (36)
dove il tensore del secondo ordine ǫµν è antisimmetrico. Infatti, siccome X 2 è un’invariante di Lorentz,
si ha:
X 2 = X ′2 (37)
e siccome per la trasformazione infinitesima X ′ = X + δX, elevando al quadrato si trova
X ′2 = (X + δX)2 ≃ X 2 + X · δX (38)
che, per la (37), dà:

X · δX = 0 . (39)
Ma siccome, ancora, δX µ = ǫµν Xν , si ha infine:
Xµ Xν ǫµν = 0 , (40)
che è vera solo se ǫµν è antisimmetrico, essendo Xµ Xν simmetrico.

Questo vuol dire che ǫµν ha 6 = n(n−1)2 parametri indipendenti: 3 rotazioni e 3 boosts di Lorentz,
lungo i tre assi coordinati.
Consideriamo l’indice “i” del campo φi come un indice di Lorentz, ovvero consideriamo il caso di un
unico campo che si trasformi sotto la (36) secondo una certa rappresentazione del Gruppo di Lorentz.
Allora si avrà:
h 1 ii
φi (X) → S(Λ)ij φj (X) ≃ 1 − Σνρ ǫνρ φj (X) =
2 j
1 i
= φi (X) − (Σνρ ǫνρ )j φj (X) . (41)
2
Le Σνρ sono i generatori del Gruppo di Lorentz, o meglio una loro rappresentazione nella base dei
campi (rappresentazione tensoriale o spinoriale), mentre ǫµν rappresenta gli “angoli” di rotazione.
In totale, quindi: (
δX µ = ǫµν Xν
i . (42)
∆φi (X) = − 21 (Σνρ ǫνρ )j φj (X)
6
Siccome
∂L ∂L i
Jµ = δφi + LδX µ = ∆φ − ∂µ φi δX µ + LδX µ , (43)

∂φi,µ ∂φi,µ
la quadricorrente conservata è data dalla seguente relazione:
∂L h 1 i i
Jµ = − Σ νρ ǫ νρ
φj
− ∂ ρ φi
δX ρ
+ LδX µ = (44)
∂φi,µ 2 j
1 ∂L ∂L
= − (Σνρ ǫνρ )ij φj i − ∂ν φi ǫνρ Xρ + gνµ ǫνρ Xρ L = (45)
2 ∂φ,µ ∂φi,µ

1 νρ i j ∂L νρ ∂L i µ
= − (Σνρ ǫ )j φ − ǫ Xρ φ − gν L = (46)
2 ∂φi,µ ∂φi,µ ,ν
1 ∂L
= − (Σνρ ǫνρ )ij φj i − ǫνρ Xρ Tνµ , (47)
2 ∂φ,µ
dove abbiamo posto:

∂L i
Tνµ = φ − gνµ L . (48)
∂φi,µ ,ν
Siccome, inoltre, ǫµν è antisimmetrico nello scambio dei due indici, l’unico contributo non nullo di
ǫ Xρ Tνµ deriva dalla parte antisimmetrica di Xρ Tνµ (in ν e ρ):
νρ
1
Xρ Tνµ − Xν Tρµ . (49)

2
Percui, infine, si ha:

1 νρ i ∂L
Jµ = ǫ − Σνρ φj i + Xρ Tνµ − Xν Tρµ = (50)
2 j ∂φ,µ
1 ρν µ
= ǫ Mρν , (51)
2
dove abbiamo definito il tensore:
∂L i
Mµρν = Xρ Tνµ − Xν Tρµ − (Σρν )j φj , (52)

∂φi,µ
che ha 24 componenti indipendenti ( 4 in µ e 6 = n(n−1) 2 in ρν).

Il tensore Mµρν è una generalizzazione del momento angolare.
È formato da un momento “orbitale” Xρ Tνµ −Xν Tρµ , che infatti ha la struttura di un prodotto vettoriale
∂L i j
e da un momento “intrinseco” (momento di spin) − ∂φ i (Σρν )j φ . Il primo momento angolare deriva
,µ
dall’azione del Gruppo di Lorentz sulle coordinate spazio-temporali; lo spin dall’azione dello stesso sulle
coordinate spinoriali del campo.
La conservazione della quadricorrente, ∂µ J µ = 0, essendo ǫρν una costante (sono gli angoli di rotazione
e non dipendono da X), porta alla seguente equazione per il tensore M:
∂µ Mµρν = 0 . (53)
La (53) costituisce in realtà 6 correnti conservate, che sono le 6 componenti indipendenti in ρ e ν di

Mµρν .
Posto Z
Mρν = d3 X Moρν , (54)
se i campi vanno a zero all’infinito, si ha la conservazione delle 6 cariche:
Ṁρν = 0 . (55)
7
0.3.2 Campo scalare e conservazione del quadriimpulso e del momento an-
golare orbitale
Se ci riduciamo al caso particolare di un campo scalare, avremo
∆φ(X) = φ′ (X ′ ) − φ(X) = 0 . (56)
Consideriamo prima di tutto una traslazione spazio-temporale di un quadrivettore aµ costante:

(
δX µ = aµ
(57)
∆φ = 0
cosicché si abbia:
δφ(X) = −∂µ φ(X) δX µ = −∂µ φ(X) aµ . (58)
Allora, si può ricavare facilmente la conservazione del quadriimpulso. Infatti, si ha:

µ µ ∂L
J = Lgν − ∂ν aν = (59)
∂φ,µ
= −Tνµ aν , (60)
dove Tνµ è il tensore energia-impulso del sistema.

Siccome la traslazione aµ è costante, la legge di conservazione della corrente J µ implica:
∂µ Tνµ = 0 , (61)
che sono quattro leggi di conservazione locale.

Definiamo il quadriimpulso del sistema come segue:
Z
Pν = d3 X Tν0 . (62)
Allora la (61) porta alla

Ṗν = 0 . (63)
Infatti, le
∂µ T0µ


 = 0
∂ T µ

= 0
µ 1
(64)


 ∂µ T2µ = 0
∂µ T3µ = 0

implicano
∂0 T00


 = ∂i T0i
∂0 T10 ∂i T1i

 =
(65)


∂0 T20 = ∂i T2i
∂0 T30 = ∂i T3i

e integrando in d3 X, supposto che i campi vadano a zero all’infinito, si ottiene la (63) componente per
componente:
d3 X T0i
 R
∂0 P0
 = ∂i →0

 . = . .
(66)
 .

 = . .
∂i d3 X T3i
R
∂0 P3 = →0

Se invece delle traslazioni consideriamo le trasformazioni proprie di Lorentz, avremo:

1 ρν 1
Jµ = Xρ Tνµ − Xν Tρµ = ǫρν Mµρν .

ǫ (67)
2 2
8
La conservazione della corrente J µ implica:
∂µ Mµρν = 0 , (68)
ovvero:
∂0 M0ρν = ∂i Miρν . (69)
Consideriamo le componenti M0ij . Si ha:
M0ij = Xi Tj0 − Xj Ti0 = [Xi Pj − Xj Pi ] ,

(70)
dove abbiamo introdotto Pi densità spaziale d’impulso. Allora:
 
0 L3 −L2
M0ij = ǫijk Lk = −L3 0 L1  (71)
L2 −L1 0
dove L = r ∧ P è la densità spaziale di momento angolare. Integrando la (69) in d3 X si ottiene la
conservazione del momento angolare orbitale:
L̇ = 0 , (72)
dove Z
Li = d3 X Li . (73)
0.3.3 Simmetrie interne globali

Come abbiamo già accennato, l’altro esempio di trasformazione (14) da considerare è quello di una
variazione che coinvolga soltanto una ridefinizione in forma dei campi, ma non un cambiamento di sistema
di riferimento.
Genericamente avremo: (
δX µ = 0
(74)
∆φi = δφi 6= 0
da cui scaturisce la legge di conservazione locale ∂µ J µ = 0 con:
∂L
Jµ = δφi . (75)
∂φi,µ
Se i campi vanno a zero all’infinito, si conserva la carica:
Z Z
∂L i
Q = d3 X J 0 = d3 X δφ . (76)
∂ φ̇i
Campo scalare carico

Il tipico esempio di simmetria interna è l’invarianza della lagrangiana del campo scalare carico,
L = ∂µ φ† ∂ µ φ − m2 φ† φ , (77)
sotto trasformazioni di fase globali:
(
φ → φ′ = eiα φ
. (78)
φ† → φ′† = φ† e−iα
Quest’invarianza determina la conservazione della corrente:
Jµ
jµ = = i ∂µ φ† φ − ∂µ φ φ† (79)

α
e della carica: Z
Q = i d3 X φ̇† φ − φ̇φ† , (80)
che può essere vista nel modello interagente come carica elettrica delle particelle e antiparticelle scalari
φ.
9
Campo di Dirac
Le trasformazioni di fase globali lasciano invariata anche un’altra lagrangiana: quella del campo di Dirac
libero:
L = ψ (i ∂6 − m) ψ . (81)
Riscriviamo le (78) per il campo ψ:
(
ψ → ψ ′ = e−iα ψ
′ . (82)
ψ → ψ = ψ eiα
Allora, avremo una corrente conservata:

Jµ
jµ = = ψ γµ ψ (83)
α
ed una carica conservata: Z Z
3 0
d3 X ψ † ψ .

Q = d X ψγ ψ = (84)
10
Lezione 15 - 28/10/21
EQ. DI KLEIN-GORDON E QUANTIZZAZIONE CAMPI SCALARI Pagina 1

KLEIN-GORDON EQUATION
History:
At a certain point, physicists realised that they had to introduce quantum mechanics in relativity
(e.g. to describe the spectrum of the H atom). In particular, they looked for a differential equation
for the wavefunction and they came up with the KG equation. However, the point of view of the
wave mechanics (“alla Schrödinger”) is no longer valid at the relativistic level. Therefore, we will
change our point of view, considering the KG eq. a differential eq. for a classical field (as the
Maxwell eq’s). When we obtain all the equations satisfied by the field, we will quantize the field. So,
the problem is not in the differential equations themselves, but in the interpretation of them
related to the Schröd. Eq.

• Now we want to rewrite such equation in a covariant way

Now we want to move to normal modes, this means that we will find plane wave solutions for
the KG equation. In this way the Hamiltonian can be written as the sum of infinite harmonic
oscillator Hamiltonians (as the string Hamiltonian), at this point it is immediate to see how to
perform the quantization. Actually, we could avoid this procedure, performing the canonical
quantization (i.e. imposition of the commutation directly on the field). We will see that, since
we know how to quantize the harmonic oscillator, we can quantize the state immediately (?)
imposing a commutation relation on the creation and annihilation operators; then, moving
back to the field, we find that the fields have to obey some commutation relations that derive
from the one we imposed on creation and annihilation operators.

Lezione 16 - 29/10/2021
Plane wave solutions of the KG equation

We moved away from non-relativistic quantum mechanics:
Now we look for a solution of the Klein-Gordon equation in terms of plane waves alla Schrödinger:
We take a free particle and take an eigenstate of the momentum, we can write our solution in
terms of the integral of plane waves. Therefore the temporal part is the energy and it is positive
definite.
We find what we already knew
So this means that the two solutions of the equation can be written as
And the general one can be written as a superposition of the two
The problem is that to interpret it alla Schröedinger means that you have negative energy too. So
we will move to a different interpretation, where this is not anymore a wavefunction (a quantum
state), but it is still a classical field (where there is no problem of interpretation) written in terms of
two functions that generate the Hilbert space. The energy of the particle will be get from the
Hamiltonian, after we quantize the field. Let us normalize these functions with respect to Klein
Gordon scalar product (not demonstrated)
Prodotto interno di
Klein-Gordon
Let us start with plus

Since we want , imposing the a (arbitrary) null phase
Doing the same for
This is just a phase

We can verify that the two solutions are orthogonal
The general solution is given by
is a dummy index
Since we want to be real

Now let us move to the quantization of these objects.
We will find that, since we wrote the field in terms of plane waves, the Hamiltonian will be
diagonalized i.e. it is expressed in terms of normal modes. Moreover, the Hamiltonian will be an
infinite sum of armonic oscillator terms, that when integrated will give you deltas and what remains
is proportional to . Before the quantization it was still true
If we want to move to a quantum picture, since we are moving from a point like object to an
extended object, we have to do the following substitution:
1 degree of freedom degree of freedom
When we move to the quantized version of the Newtonian mechanical point of view (hence, point-
like particle), we promote and to operators. Now we would like to do the same, however
when we deal with and we have infinite degrees of freedom. Therefore, each degree
of freedom could be interpreted as an operator.
So the interpretation is: is a classical function and now we would like to promote it to be an
operator acting on some Hilbert space.
In the expression of which objects can take the status of operators? Not or (they are
functions), but the coefficients: and
In particular, we will see that now
To corroborate this view, we will write down the Hamiltonian of the system and we will end up with
We note that this is something which is connected to the Hamiltonian of an armonic oscillator
(actually an infinite number) and we know how to quantize it. If we impose the commutation rule
we already know, we will find a commutation relation between and .
We have closed the circle. We know how to quantize to harmonic oscillator and we find what we
would do if you would proceed directly quantizing the field as the degrees of freedom of your
system alla Dirac.
With a point-like particle we would impose that and become operators and then we would
impose the commutation relation between them, we could do it also with the field and its
conjugated momentum
And we would proceed in the quantization.

But we will get these from the other picture (harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian ecc ecc) without
imposing directly the commutation rule, in order to understand better the meaning of this
procedure.

Lezione 17 - 02/11/2021
Recap
Let us go back to our scalar field. We found that it obeys the Klein-Gordon equation
For the moment it has to be interpreted as a classical field. We constructed the Lagrangian of this
field such that the Euler-Lagrange equations gives us back the Klein-Gordon equation, and then we
found the Hamiltonian density (in order to quantize the field) by a Legendre transformation
The energy is definite positive, so it cannot be connected to the frequency
We can find a planewave solution and, in a quantization picture, we would like to have at the
exponent the energy of the particle. However in this case you get an expansion of planewaves in
which you have two kind of planewaves/frequencies, one positive and one negative. So the
Schrödinger like interpretation as energy fails.
Thinking it as classical field
Now we would like to move to the quantization of this object (it is the analogue of the potential
for the classical Maxwell's equations)
At this point we promote the field to an operator by promoting to operators the coefficients
and .
The description of the operator is naturally given in terms of something that depends on time. A
couple of comments about the different points of view:
The evolution in time of your system is given by the Schrodinger equation: The Hamiltonian is the
generator of the translation in time

Non relativistic QM pictures and canonical quantization
In non-relativistic QM we have 2 possible pictures:
1. Schrodinger picture: fixed operators, evolution of states
If you have a certain observable (an operator that acts on a state) in the end you measure the
sandwich of the operator between this two states
Schrödinger
In the Schrodinger's picture is only the state that depends on time.
2. Heisenberg picture: fixed states, evolution of operators.

We want We know that unitary transformations do not affect this scalar product.
The evolution of our system can be written in terms of
(i.e. what we
actually measure) has
to be the same in both
the interpretations
Therefore
If the Hamiltonian is independent on time, we can write
Let’s consider the operator ; If we derive it with respect the time we obtain
similar to the classical relation
Canonical
quantization
In doing this, we have also to impose the commutation relation between and
if more than one d.o.f.

Now we want to quantize the field:
We have to impose the commutation relations among the field and the conjugate momentum
NB: and are taken at the same time . Note: now we have infinite degrees
We will see what happens if we change the of freedom (one for each ),
reference frame through a Lorentz transformation therefore the Kronecker delta
becomes a Dirac delta
Hamiltonian in normal modes

We have frozen the time. Since we have in a relativistic theory we can move to another sistem of
reference by a boost. Now we would like to write the Hamiltonian in terms of normal modes:
We have to plug in

Even if at a classical level it does not mean anything, let us keep
When we integrate over , because of the first delta we get
Now we have an infinite number of armonic oscillators and we can move to the quantization of the
field and the Hamiltonian: ;
Once written in terms of operators, they will act on an Hilbert space, in which the vacuum is defined
by and we create particles by applying

We would like to have the same form of the Hamiltonian that we know from non relativistic
quantum mechanics: Using commutation relation (we will see them later)
A disaster, it is an infinite amount

of energy related to the vacuum
If we rescale, in some way, the energy of the vacuum, we get a very nice object: The first term is
such that
So we can renormalize the definition of our energy: first we need to regularize our integral. For
instance we can move to a quantization in a finite volume and then to move to the continuum limit.
We can also act many times on the vacuum with different momenta, in this way we construct a
state with different number of particles and different momenta.
It is not anymore a single Hilbert space, in which you have only one particle. You have a space that
is more flexible, called Fock space, in which you have the product of different number of Hilbert
spaces, depending on which particle/mode is switched on. This is where we want to arrive, now let
us go back to the canonical quantization and let us see how can we proceed from the fields. We will
find that actually are the creation and annihilation operators, so they satisfy the usual
commutation relation and therefore the Hamiltonian will be written in terms of a number operator.
Canonical quatization and commutation relations on the fields

We have
Let us impose the commutation relations of the fields. We know that
We want to show that these commutation relations among fields, implies commutation relations on
the operators

Commutation relations for the creation and annihilation operators
Remember that we have defined a scalar product, according to which you can extract an
orthonormal system
Let us take the first form
Normal ordering
We can interpret this in terms of annihilation and creation operators in view of the fact that in the
end what we got is the hamiltonian in terms of
We remove this object renormalizing the energy (imposing it is

zero)
The change we are doing to this form (without the infinite energy) from means we
are moving the creation operator sistematically on the left. This is called normal ordering
(ordinamento normale) and it is indicated with the two colon. What we get is this form of the
energy
One-particle state
Once we have constructed our Fock's space, we can take the following one particle state and look
for the energy, we expect it to be an eigenstate

Two-particle state and Bose symmetry
If we have, for instance, a two particle state acting on a vacuum, what happens to the state
In the integral it
will survive only
the symmetric
part: the scalar
field is related
to bosons
Momentum in terms of creation and annihilation operators
What happens to the momentum? The momentum is an operator we define using the Noether's
theorem
Since we want to write it in normal ordering, because when we write in term of the fields, we
get again the problem with the infinities
commutes with so we can go back to and see that, of course, it is an eigenstate
Then we can understand which is the total momentum of a system/state of different momenta.
This is a field that describes bosons. However, in the situation we considered up to now, the field is
real, so we have just the particle connected to the operators and the real field. We will see that
using a complex field introduces to us the concept of antiparticle.

Lezione 18 - 04/11/21
Recap
We moved to a basis in which our classical and real field is written in normal modes
(i.e. Fourier transform)
Quantum description:
The Hamiltonian can be written in terms of
this looks a lot alike an Hamiltonian of a system of an infinite number of harmonic oscillators,
then we can quantize the harm. osc. through the commutation relations we found for
Note: Another path to quantize the system is to apply directly on the commutation
relations which come from canonical quantization
By acting on the vacuum state with the creation operator we can create an excitation with
momentum corresponding to a one particle state (i.e. a plane wave)
since we know that we can apply two different creation operators with different
momenta in order to get a two particle state (with Bose symmetry)
We also found that if we apply the Hamiltonian to this two particle state we get:
and that the action of the momentum operator on a state is :
Normal ordering: (we imposed that the energy of vacuum is zero)
This redefinition of the energy can be justified if we think about a finite volume system. In this
case the vacuum term is regularised (it is also proportional to the volume) then we can absorb it
in the normal ordering definition (i.e. we redefined the energy of the vacuum state) and then
we can take the formal limit of infinite volume
We have seen that the space in which our operators act is more “flexible” then an Hilbert
space (one particle) and it is made up of a direct product of different Hilbert spaces. Indeed
we can have more than one particle that interact and go in a different number of particles,
but it also include the description of one particle state
at this point we can also take a one particle state which is a wavepacket i.e. a generic one
particle state made up by a superposition of of plane waves | scaled by an integrable
function which is the wavefunction of the one particle state
Two particles state
this means that in (in the integration of the two particle state) remains only a
symmetrization of
This kind of symmetry tells us that in the KG theory the fields are bosons, and now we know
that this happens because of the commutation relations for the fields

Complex field
Up to now we studied the real scalar field i.e. no spin, no charge. But we have also seen the
complex scalar field at a classical level in order to introduce a new observable which is a constant
of motion: the charge. We have seen that this fact is connected to the invariance of the local
Lagrangian under phase rotation of the field.
Now we will introduce the quantized version of the complex scalar field:
Let fields degenerate in mass
Note: If we have a real field then it is hermitian (i.e. ) and it is therefore a good candidate
to be an observable. It is not true if the field is complex ( )
Let’s use what we already know about real field
Let’s impose the commutation relations and let’s move to the Hamiltonian description

Energy: same procedure as the Lagrangian
Momentum: idem as before
Note: and are different operators, then when they act on the vacuum they excite two
different particles. We can see their different contribution in the Hamiltonian and in the momentum
Fock space
Charge of the scalar complex field
Remember: the Lagrangian we wrote for a scalar complex field is invariant under phase rotation
, then it is invariant under the group .
This brings a conserved quantity: charge

N.B: Here the relative sign between and is crucial because we are not able to
find a difference looking at energy, momentum and mass of these two particles.
But now we have the charge operator which gives us a difference.
The charge density can be written as the 0-th component of the current
This is connected to the fact that the charge density is an observable (we will discuss it in the next
lecture). When we have an operator/observable, what we would like to do is to measure this
observable in different points of the space at a certain given time; in such a way that this can be
done, we would have to have that the operator (for instance in , in and so on) they share the
same orthonormal bases in the Hilbert space, and moreover the commutator of the observable
inone point and in another point, at the same time, should be equal to zero, in such a way that we
do not have the influence of the first measurement on the second one (or viceversa): they should
be indipendent.
This is exactly what happens for the real field : it is an hermitian operator (it can be observed
and measured). What we would like to be able to do is to map our operator in all the points
of the space at a given time . This means that if we take two operators in two differents points,
thay have to commute otherwise the measurement we do in one point could affect the
measurement in the other point (made at the same time), and this violate the causality. In fact, it
could be possible to connect them with a signal that travels at a speed greater than the speed of
light (since the distance is space-like). So the two observable, measured in and

In the case of the field, thhis is already imposed (and so guaranteed) by the commutation relation.
We would like to see that this is indeed the case even if we move to another inertial frame, which
can be reached by a Lorentz transformation. In the old inertial frame, the distance bewteen and
at the same time is :
SPACE-LIKE
If we move to another inertial frame, the distance bewteen the two points changes, however it
remains spacelike (the is invariant). We want to demonstate that, if we take this commutation
relation
in another inertial frame, where we are not anymore in the situation in which we have the same
time but we have still a spacelike distance, the commutator is zero. In order to do that we have to
demostarte that is invariant under Lorentz transformation, so its value is the same in any IF.

Lezione 19 - 05/11/21
Properties of the commutator and causality

We have a local theory (i.e. everything is written in terms of fields which depends on the point,
also the operators) and we moved to its quantum version through commutation relations. We
should be able to see that the theory is consistent with the principle of causality (special relativity)
i.e. the information propagates at most at speed of light . This means that if we measure two
observables simultaneously in two different points of the space they cannot influence each other
(otherwise they communicate at speed > ).
We know that it is a peculiar case i.e. we can move to another reference frame with a Lorentz
transformation we should prove that the commutator is a Lorentz invariant i.e.
in every ref. frame. Since we know that the observables are functions of
the field, the previous relation is related to the commutator of the fields (in particular to the real
fields, since and then they are good candidates for observable quantities)
This requirement is satisfied by the commutation rules, so it is already part of the theory.
Then we will just check this relation in order to see that our construction is consistent.
Now we can see that when (i.e. simultaneously)
If we prove that is an invariant, it means that the

previous result (=0) is true in all inertial frames

Now let’s prove that at a generit is an invariant. We will do it by rewriting as a
manifestly invariant object
We need also an invariant integral measure. We will prove that it can be written as
And what happens is that
This is manifestly invariant form, and therefore is invariant in any inertial frame. This means that the
construction of the theory is consistent. What we will see is that also in the Dirac case, in which
actually we do not have commutation relation, but we have ANTIcommutation relation and the field
will not be a measurable quantity

EQ. DI DIRAC AND CANONICAL QUANTIZATION
Historically Dirac equation came out with the purpose of correcting some of the issues of the
Klein-Gordon equation in the interpretation alla Schrodinger.
Dirac looked for an equation with the following features:
• It has to be relativistically covariant (indeed it is a order eq. in time and space such that
they are on the same ground)
• has to be positive definite (this problem came out bacause of the derivative in time)
• A solution of Dirac equation is also a solution of Klein-Gordon equation.
We have to impose this because it has to be satisfied the relativistic relation
i.e.
Properties of the and matrices

If we apply twice the operators we obtain
EQ. DI DIRAC E QUANTIZZAZIONE CAMPO DI DIRAC Pagina 1

and are traceless matrices with eigenvalues , then they have an even number of +1
and -1 in order to sum to 0 they can be , etc…
Now we want that these four objects anticommute. In the space of matrices we already
have a basis: 3 Pauli matrices and the identity
Then we should find 4 matrices written in terms of and . A possible representation is

Lezione 20 - 09/11/2021
Unitarity in gamma_0 metric and Dirac conjugated. Adjoint Dirac equation. Norether's theorem. Current and Probability
density. Lagrangian density and conjugated momenta. Energy momentum tensor. Energy density.
Da <https://www.roma1.infn.it/~boncianr/week8_QFT_21_22.html>
To cure the fact that probability density should be positive, we need to move from second order
differential equation in time to a first order one. Therefore Dirac proposed
And we have seen that these matrices have peculiar properties
Hermitian Commutatiin relations
All these properties can be recovered if we use a certain representation, which is
(we will not verify that this particular representation indeed satisfies the properties above). The
representation we wrote is not particularly appealing from the pointof view of the manifest
covariance. To write it a bit better, we introduce a little set of matrices connected to and
So if we multiply equation for on the left
If we look at the gammas, we find that their representation is

If we look at the anticommutation relations that gamma alpha should satisfy, we can collect all the
relations in a single relation that involves the gamma matrices: The algebra of the gamma matrices
Clifford algebra
So the form we wrote is manifestly covariant, even if , is not a four vector (they are matrices). To
prove that it is indeed covariant, we would like to have that, in two different inertial frames, we
should write a differential equation, to describe the physics we are observing, in such a way that
they have the same form
Let us see the different parts of the equation and let us see how this can be done. The spinor
transforms under a certain finite (4) dimensional representation
Actually we aready know in adavce what is. But let us see how this can be constructed, how to
find the same result of group theory starting from the fact that we would like to get the same
equation in form when changing the inertial frame
Since we are transforming our coordinates
We can find out a different representation of the gamma matrices
However, the new gamma matrices have to fulfill the same algebra , otherwise we
would have a way to distinguish between the two inertial frames. They obey the same algebra if is
connected to by a unitary tranformation
And we already know that a unitary transformation actying on in does not change physics,
since when we look at the scalar product (for the expectation value), it does not change
On top of that, if we have

It means that we do not change the gamma when we move from one inertial to another, because
we can perform back a unitary transformation tha gives us the representation tilde in terms of the
gamma. In so doing the transformed equation can be written in terms of
should be such that this is indeed a representation of the Lorentz group (in the end we will
check the one found):
We have additional constrains that must fulfill: the relations #. Let us start with one of the two
We can tranform the derivative with respect to into one with respect to by a LT
Substituying
We impose that
In order that to be true
This means that this sandwhich behaves like a four-vector of operators. This is the relation that
our transformation matrix, in the representation we are considering, has to fulfill in order to leave
the Dirac differential equation invariant in form (so covariant)
Now we consider an infinitesiaml transformation

And we write down
What we want to
find

We wanto to find because it contains the six generation of the Lorentz group in the
representation we are considering
Substituying our infinitesimal expressions in
Keeping just the I order
Now we can antisymmetrize
One can verify that
Unitarity in metric and Dirac conjugated

We want to have a look to the actual form of the generators. We already noticed in the styudy of
the representation of the Lorentz group that, since the LG is not compact, it does not have (a part of
the identity) a finite dimensional representations that are unitary. Indeed, this representation
is not unitary: In fact, if we take into account the form that we have for , we can see immediatly
that (we want the generators to be hermitians)
Therefore, if we go to the exponential form
However, there is a peculiar property of : if we sandwhich with two , we find that
For is trivial. If we go to
For

We found a very nice property, because now we can sandwhich the operator and we can prove
that
Since this is not unitary, but it is unitary in metric (so on sandwhich between matrices), we
find immediatly that is not a Lorentz scalar. If we move to another inertial frame and we
perform , we find that
However, in order to have a scalar, we can introduce the Dirac adjoint
With that we can construct the bilinear of the field , which is actually a scalar, in fact
Basically in order to recover some properties that it would be nice to have, we can use the Dirac bar.
Now we can prove that the representation that we found , actually fulfills the
group relations. We need to prove that
We can move from the following

The first transformation

For the second transformation
Adjoint Dirac equation, current and probability density

Now we have a clear picture:
1. A differential equation which is covariant
2. Everything tranforms under LT as in the times from the Lorentz group (?), so we
have four dimensional spinors
3. We know how to write the generators of that representation
Let us go back to the physic interpretation of the ?????????? And let us see that moving from II
order equation with respect to time derivative to a first order one, we actually found an equation
that gives, at least, a candidate for probability density which is positive definite. In order to do that,
we take the Dirac equation and we want to play the same as we did for the Sch. Equation to see if
we are able to construct a continuity equation and how the current looks like
We used the fact that and . Now we multply the firs by and the second by and
we subctract them
Now we can introduce a current
Continuity eq.

If we have a continuity equation and we are in the condition such that the fields goes at least at zero
when we integrate all over the volume, we can define what can be identified with the probability
density as
This is positive definite
We now have a theory that can be interpreted as a 1-particle theory, but of course, when we will
arrive to the construction of the Hamiltonian, we will see that the Hamiltonian is not positive
definitve. For the moment, let us just notice that the current can be written in a more covariant way
This is indeed a four vector, and we can prove it by demonstrating that
We know that
We do the hermitian
It is a constraint it must fulfill
Now we move to the study of the solutions of the Dirac equation. Let us look at the structure of the
equation and let us try to write down the lagrangian and the Hamiltonian of the dirac equation.
Once we have the lagrangian we can look at the conserved quantities, quantities that are candidate
for a certain ??? And quantum version of the theory. We will see explicilty the non-relativistic limit
to show that if we neglect that we have indeed negative energy solution (as we will see)

the problem of negative energy solution is solved (we find something that can be indeed interpreted
as a probability density) and the probabilistic interpretation of the theory, if we want to keep the
one-particle point of view (the Schr. Equation point of view), it can still be done; however this
equation still has the problem of negative energy solution, beacuse we impose that it has to fullfill
the correct relativistic relationship bewtween the energy and the momentum (at a certain point this
relation has to come out again). We will find that the solutions indeed have both positive and
negative energy planewave and we are back to not knowing how to interpret the negative one.
However, if we make in such a way that we are able to discart for a moment the negative solution
and look only to the positive one, we find that indeed the non-relativistic limit goes immidietly to
the Pauli equation (we have the spin for free!); nevertheless we have also to interpret the negative
energy solutions: the only way to do that is to move to the correct quantum version of the theory
(as we did for KG eq) and to quit the one particle interpretation of this differential equation and to
move to the interpretation where this is a classical field and then quantize it.
To quantize the field means also to solve the problem of the fact that the hamiltonian density (the
energy) is not positive definite (we will see). This come from the fact that we have a first order
equation and we have two different solutions and in the operators (the hamiltonian) this is reflected
in the fact that if we use positive energy solutions we have positive energy, but if we put negative
energy solutions we have a minus sign. It seems that the states with a negative energy interpreted
alla schrodinger, have indeed negative energy that is confirmed by the fact that the hamiltonian
gives us negative eigenvalues. This can be cured when we move to the quantized version of the
theory, not by imposing commutation relations by anti-commutation relations.
The imposition of anticommutation relations gives us the correct point of view on the statistic of the
particle that we are trying to describe: they are Fermions. In the end, everything goes in the correct
point of view, moving to the II quantization.
Lagrangian density
For the moment let us study what we have at hands: the differential equations. First of all, let us see
if we can construct a lagrangian density from which we can get the differential equation of the Dirac
field
If we want the equation for
Now we can use the fact that is not hermitian, is hermitian, is antihermitian), but what is
hermitian is
So we try to write in terms of

Multiplying on the rhs by
This means that we can write the equations for the fields and in the following way
##
The statment is that these two equations come from the follwing action
Dirac equation
So we claim that this is the lagrangian density of the Dirac field
In this way the differential equations ## come from the fact that we can impose the Hamilton
principle , so taking variations of the fields and such that they are zero at the
endpoint
Integrating by parts
= 0 when integrated
because it is a total
derivative and we
impose that is zero
atthe end points
These are the differential equations ##

Lezione 21 - 11/11/2021
Angular Momentum. Spin. Internal transformations and invariance of Dirac's equation under U(1) global phase
transformations. Charge. gamma_5. Bilinear covariants and their behaviour under Lorentz transformations.
Let us go on with the Dirac equation. We found the Dirac's equation for the field
And for the adjoint field defined as
That have to fulfil an algebra, which gives you the antisimmetrization relation in terms of
We can also remember that
We imposed that, when we do a Lorentz transformation, we want to describe the same physics
with the same differential equations. We found that our field transforms as
can be written in terms of a matrix, therefore we can write it in terms of gamma

matrices and we find that this is indeed the case
So we can find constructively. For instance imposing that when we apply LT on the first Dirac's
equation, we find an equation that has to be the same in form. Than we go to the infinitesimal
transformation and we find a solution of the equation that has to full fill, which is
So we find that is not a unitary representation of the field, because the group is not compact
and the generators of the boost are antihermitian. We also find that
Let us see some useful proprieties we will use. We can write our generators in terms of gamma
matrices, again.

We choose a representation in which the gamma matrices are (Dirac or canonical representation)
And then what we have is
They are the generators of the boost
For instance, if we want to write down a boost that acts on a psi (x direction)
More explicitly
Reparametrizating them in terms of an angle
When you go with infinitesimal velocities/transfirmations
When we move to the expression of
If we calculate explicitly , we get

We move to the finite a finite velocity
This is the operator that act on a spinor for the transformation. So if we have the form of a spinor in
one inertial frame, we can boost in another inertial frame. If we boost in the direction you get
and the direction .
Angular Momentum & spin

Let us go back to the lagrangian density and let us see which are the conservative quantities.
We don't have the
derivative on
This can be found also with the usual revers engineering:
We want to move to the Hamiltonian picture. This cannot be done in a canonical way, because it is
not possible to get the conjugated momentum of one of the fields:
In this case we use the Noether's theorem. We construct the energy of the system (not the
canonical Hamiltonian) by the Noether's theorem. We know that the Hamiltonian is conserved and
we know how to write it down in terms of the fields. In this particular case what we find is the same
of what we would have found if we would blindly go on with the Legendre's transformations (which
is not possible)
We want to write down the energy of the configurations that are actually solution of the Dirac's
equations (the equations of motion), in this case
Not positive definite
This is a problem if you want to interpret it as energy, the way to escape the problem is to use
Quantum Field Theory.
We constructed the problem in such a way to have Poincare's invariance, from this invariance we
get the conservation of certain quantities: 4 from rigid translation and 6 from the proper Lorentz
group.

These additional objects are related to the angular momentum and the spin of the field. Let us take
a rigid translation pf an infinitesimal vector
In this case what is conserved (in the sense that we have a current) is the canonical energy-
momentum tensor
This is such
that, for
N.Theo.
This can be also proven
Since it must be
solution of the
Dirac's equation
We have a current and the charges are the integral in the space of
is the Hamiltonian
We can look at the invariant under proper Lorentz transformations and we can see that is
conserved the generalise angular momentum
The conservative quantities are This term was not present when
we studied the Klein Gordon field
Because of the additional term, there is another conserved quantity
I have to replace such that

Looking at the zero components Spin
Momento angolare orbitale
Invariance of Dirac's equation under U(1) global phase

transformations
There is another very important quantity that is conserved: The charge. The Lagrangian density is
invariant under the following transformation (global phase transformation )
Since it is invariant, we know there is the corresponding charge

Not present because we are speaking
about internal symmetry (we do not
touch the spacetime point)
We need to understand what is. In our case
Charge
The conserved quantity is
Matrice
Let us study what happens when we use parity and time reversal. If Poincare is a good symmetry,
we would like to have the state such that the representations of the Poincare's group on the space
of the states has to be done either by linear unitary operators (parity) or antiunitary (time reversal).
For the moments let us study the object we need to study that. In particular we want to arrive to
the definition of an additional gamma matrix (important for the weak interactions), that is a
composition of the gammas we already have and then how to calculate objects that appear, for
instance, in the calculation of the cross section:
It is adjoint
It is just an index, it 6 commutations

does not matter if
you put it up or
down

Moreover it anticommutes with all the gammas
Three time to
commute
The same trick can be apply to
So if you use the Dirac representation for the Gamma
We want to write the gamma 5 in a covariant way. We notice that
with
If we have an even permutation we get , if we have an odd we get . We want to saturate the
indices in a way such that in equal to zero only when you have . To do so we write down
the total antisimmetric tensor
To sum over all the possibilities (24: 12 positives and 12 negatives)
So we can define the as
Bilinear covariants and their behaviour under Lorentz transformations.

We want to see how transforms under . If we have a lorentz transformation, the
determinant can be written in terms of these antisimmetric tensors
Now what we would like to see what is the behaviour of
For proper orthocronus transformations
Otherwise

This leads me directly to possible definitions of the possible bilinear of the fields, in which you have
the gamma dipendence, of course. I need sixteen independent matrices as a basis of my space. I can
write a base of my algebra which can be written in terms of these matrices
I want to study these objects. We already studied one of them: The charge
It is a scalar
It is the current
It is a pseudoscalar
It is a pseudovector

Lezione 22 - 12/11/2021
Algebra of the gamma matrices

We already know the algebra of the gammas
Algebra di Clifford
Usign this relation we are able to perform a number of calculations, or gamma matrices, that we will
use to perform a cross section, indeed to perform that we need to make the product of gammas and
then taking the trace of them on the Dirac components. We work in 3+1 dimensions, but this
algebra can be extended to a different number of dimensions and this is what we do usually when
we want to move to higher orders (treated in the courses of QED and QFT to avoid divergences).
Using the anticommutation relation above, we can demostrate that
Proof:
Algebra di Clifford
Proof:
Property 1)
Since in the calculus also happens to have slash factor, sometimes is useful to have relations for the
product of slash vectors
We can extract the Lorentz part because we
Defining do not have anticommutation realtions: we
only have to keep the order of the gammas
Proof:
All these kind of relations make in such a way that we can contract the product of gammas matrices,
to have a smaller number of factors on which to perform the trace (even tough usually PC do them)

Trace of gamma matrices
Now we have to perform traces of gamma matrices
We know that
A,B not matrices
Proof
Cyclicity of trace:
Clifford algebra
Lez 21:
Proof
With odd
Proof Prop. 1.2)
Prop 2)
Prop 1.2)
With even, it will be a combination of scalar products

Lec. 17 of 2020

Plane wave solutions of Dirac's equations
Now that we know the technical part, let us move solutions of the Dirac equation. We are still
considering a classical field, that we will see it can be interpreted, in a sense, as a one-particle state
wave equation, because, at leaste, the probability density is positive definite (neglecting the
negative energy solutions, we get in the non-relativistic limit the Pauli equation).
To quantize it, we will follow the exact same path as with the KG equation; so we need to find a
form of the field in terms of normal modes (= (relativistic) plane waves). However in this case we
have a spinor, instead of a normal function. Therefore we add a term , which has the scruture
of a spinor
is a 4-component spinor, contains the structure
If we define them as solution, we have therefore to impose the following equal to zero
Since we want it true for every exponential term
This is a system of equations
matrix 4-component object
We can write the matrix in terms of matrices using the gamma matrices. So we need to
divide also the spinor part in two 2-component objects
And if we look at the expression from an actual matrix point of view, writing down
explicitly the matrix of the representation we use, we have:
In order to have non-trivial solutions, the determinant of the matrix should be equal to zero
On shell mass relation

Therefore
(again)
Hence, we have two different independent kind of solutions. Using two different letters for the
spinor part:
Imposing that is a solution for the Dirac equation, we find again
However for
Now we have to find a solution of the spinors for the system of these two equations
Lezione 23 - 16/11/2021
In order to do that, the easiest thing is moving to a certain frame in which the solution is trivial, and
then to boost back to a frame in wich the particle (the field, as we will see) we are looking at has a
certain momentum. Since , we are speking about a massive particle; the solution is trivial if
we write down the equation in the frame in which the particle is at rest
4-components
This is the system that is needed to be solved. We can look at it explicitly, namely in the base we use
for the Pauli-Dirac representation

Lezione 23 - 16/11/2021
So we can write the general solution
spin up spin down
spin up spin down
Therefore we have indeed a degeration. We have the superposition of two linear indipendent
solutions which are eigenfuctions of the third component of the spin. In fact, under a rotation
around the axes, the Dirac field transform in the form of the equation (2.57) of the picture below,
so the spinors and describe a particle with spin with polarization + and
respectively.
We are fixing the
momentum and the energy,
hence what we have is the
superposition of two states
in which we do not fix the
third component of the spin:
a superposition of spin up
and down for the positive
solution and idem for the
nergative one.
Now that we solved the
system in this particular
frame, we boost to a frame
in which
First of all, we can formally write down the boost operators (we already wrote it)
Now if we write
We can write the matrix in terms of the energy and the mass of the particle, but also we need to
put a minus in the antydiagonal terms because we are taking , since we are boosting in a
fram in which the particle as momentum

This is what we should apply to the spinor (2.59) in order to have the spinor in the frame with
momentum Or, equivalently, we can go with the following: we look at
This means that the two objects are orthogonal. We can use this property, because we want to have
the solution of
Normalization factor
Now we want to normalize these objects and we what happens in the frame in which we are at rest
and then boost.
In the ref. system where

, we find by direct
inspection (they are orthogonal)
We find that, for instance
Even if we proved that relation in the RF where , we already proved that and is a
Lorentz scalar, so the relations stands in every reference frame. Therefore, we impose the
normalization as the following

Up to a phase
Now we generalize also for the components
Same game
Up to a phase

In the end, the solutions are the following and we usually write them in terms of two dimensional
spinors components and
And we get for free the fact that they are orthogonal. We can write down p slash:
If we want to write the four components, we substitute in the system above
We would like to normalize to the dagger, because the scalar product includes . If we look at

We define another pair of spinors to require that is normalized
Now we normalize to the delta, when integrating in we will have a due to the volume, so
we add an to normalize it
Let us put everything together and let us write the Dirac field as a superposition of normal modes.
The planewaves have a degenerancy (polarization up and down), so we have tu sum over the
polarizations
The structure is the same as the Klein-Gordon field, apart from the fact that now we have spinors.
This is what concern the Lorentz structure of the field, then we can promote to operators are the
two functions and . We will see that this also means that, if the field is not real, we will
have two kind of particles, exactly as in the case of the KG field.

Energy projectos
Now we have two different kind of solutions and we want to write down a set of projectors; in this
way we can project out from the positive energy spin up solution and the positive energy spin
down solution and so on… First we need to remember that Orth. relation
We can look at projectors using the following combination
To see that it actually works, let us see how they operate on the field. Since they act only on the
spinorial part, let us directly see how they act on a superposition of the two spinors. Let us start
with
So projects out the positive energy part of the spinor. We can do the same with
Moreover one can prove that are actually projectors and so see that
(idempotent)
(orthogonal)
(sum to 1)

Polarization sum
For the moment we are able to project the energies, in a while we will be also able to project on the
spinors to remove the degeneracy. Before doing that, we calcolate the polarization sum of the
following objects
Since we multiply a column times a row, the result is a matrix. And they are peculiar matrices that
we will encounter when we will write down the cross section of unpolarized processes; indeed, in
that case we do not a polarized output (we do not measure it), therefore we need to sum over all
the polarizations. Let us prove that the first matrix is
In the same way , it also hols

Lezione 24 - 18/11/2021
Spin projectors
As we said, the solution we found for the Dirac equation have a degenerationon the spin; we might
find ourself in the situation where we need to select a certain spin. In order to construct projectors
for the spin, let us move back to the system where the particle is at rest.
We know that the generator of the rotation in the directionis
In our representation
The fact that it is diagonal means that the spinors we chose as reference system, i.e and
, are eigenfunctions of this operator (the third component of the spin)
If we want to select spin up we have to select the eigenvectors with eigenvalues ; we construct
the following operator To select the 3rd component of the spin if we
are in a representation in which is not
already diagonalized. In our case
When acting on and

is an
eigenfunction of
selects only the upper

component
We would like to write down in terms of gamma matrices and in such a way that is invariant
under proper LT
is a Lorentz invariant
A generalization can be the following

We want to remove gamma zero because it is was makes it a matrix, without it it would be just a
scalar product (therefore it can be boosted in any RS). For the moment let us keep it. Let us take a
generic spinor
We select the upper components of and
We select the lower components of and
Let us remove gamma zero (we are constructing a projector, we are not saying it has to be written in
this way)
In this case
We select the spin up component of and

the spin down component of
We select the spin up component of and

the spin down component of
To see that they are actually projectors, we need to prova that they have the following properties
Since they are projectors, we can write down composite projectors (and prove that they are)

Helicity
We constructed the total momentum operator, because the lagrangian is invariant under LT
(Noether's Th):
Such that
Orbital angular momentum Spin
From this we get that the components of the angular momentum are
We can prove that the total angular momentum is conserved also because we get the following
The Hamiltonian of the Dirac field is the following, and since it commutes with , we get (again)
that it is a conserved quantity
However, if we look separately the spin and the angular momentum , they do not commute with
, unless we are in the reference system where . We can actually find another object that,
instead, represents in some way the spin, but it commutes with the Hamiltonian: The helicity.
This operator is obtained projecting the total angular momentum in the direction of , in this way
we get zero in the orbital angular momentum
So we can create a state in which we can analyse at the same time the energy and then the
projection of the spin in the direction of the motion

Non-relativistic limit and recovering of Schroedinger's equation
Let us suppose for the moment that we can neglect the negative energy solutions of the Dirac's
equation. We can do some rough approximation to show that the Dirac's equation reprodices the
Pauli equation in the non-relativistic limit. It is important because it was one of the reasons why it
had success. This means that the introduction of the relativity in the equation gives us the spin and
, which was put by hand.
Let us consider and electron in a knwon electronmagnetic field . We need to introduce

the interaction by minimal substitution
Where id the electronic charge. We get that our equation for the free field becomes
Or in an equivalent form
These are the Euler-Lagrange equation of the followin lagrangian density
Potential
Free Lagrangian Interaction part:
Current
We want to describe the physics of a particle with
Newtonian energy
The large contribution in the non relativistic limit is due to the constant factor: The mass. From a
non relativistic point of view, we can remove it because the energy is defined up to a constant.
Looking at the positive energy solutions (the ones that in our mind go to the electron), in these
conditions, it is helpful to isolate the rapidly varying phase factor which corresponds to the rest
energy, and rescale the solution to # in the form (la forma della trasformazione è data dalla sua
azione sull'equazione e non viceversa)
Where oscillates much more slowly than

Now we write down the spinor in two component spinors
Because we are moving from a situation in which we have four components (a spinor) to the Oauli
matrices which are written in terms of two dimensional spinors (because we consider only the
onvariance under rotation, not the full LT). In this way, what we will find is something that contains
a privilage differential equation for one of the two components of this four dimensional object ,
because then we move back to a two dimensional description, which is the correct one (no boost,
just generators of rotation). So, now we have
Si ottiene un sistema accoppiato di equazioni differenziali
In the second equation, the kinetic energy can be neglected with respect to the mass
(L’aver riscalato il termine prima assicura che ora l’operatore restituisca l’energia
cinetica). Therefore
Trascurando l’impulso rispetto alla massa vediamo che è trascurabile rispetto a , ossia nel limite
classico non ci sono antiparticelle. Plugging it in the first equation, we get a unique equation for the
system
Analizziamo il termine quadratico, but first let us remember that

Hence
Because they are totally symmetric and is

antysimmetric
magnetics field
So the equation that we have for this two dimensional spinor is
This is exactly what comes out when we include the electromagnetic field in the Pauli equation
The gyromagnetic factor of the electron

Lezione 25 - 19/11/2021
Discrete symmetries
Parity
Until now we discussed classical interpretations and we analysed what happens to some quantities
if we perform a continuous proper ortocronus Lorentz transformation. But we did not put attention
to describe the symmetries (not only continuous, but also discrete ones). Since we found the
operator that acts on the spinor concerning PLT, we now study what happens if we consider a
parity, time reversal transformation and charge conjugation (moving to the antiparticle).
Let us go back to parity, we already found that
In a sense you look at the action of a mirror. This can be represented with a four vector notation as
So, since is like the metric tensor for the Minkowsky space, its effect is to raise or download an
index (to move to a contravariant vector or a covariant one). We want to understand how it is
written in the representation of
We want our Dirac's Lagrangian density equation to be invariant under parity transformation,
therefore this has to fulfil the same relation that we impose for of the POLG. So the has
to be such that
Of course has to be written in terms of gamma matrices. If we write down the equations that
we want to fulfill
Now we require (a meno di una costante, irrilevante dal punto di vista

quantomeccanico). Remember that parity transformation can be represented by a unitary operator,
while the time reversal by an antiunitary. So here we can require that
Therefor it is a phase
Now we impose that if we act twice, we get back the same component: It is idempotent.

This is the first transformation, then we can look at the transformations of the bilinears of our
theory under parity transformations.
Here you have
And you want to see that these too are invariant under parity transformation
This means ,
but .
However what you see in your lagrangian density is that this object is saturated with either or
. If you want to transform the whole lagrangian density you have to trasform also these two
objects under parity transformations. Since changes sign in the spacial part, so does the . So
we have two minus sign, one from the special part of and one from the ones: Therefore this
product is invariant under parity transformation.
The other object is , the scalar potential is indeed a scalar, so it does not change sign;
however the vevtoral component comes from a current and therefore if you invert with parity, you
get a minus sign and, again, you have two minus sign.

Charge conjugation
The charge conjugation comes with, actually, what we yet did not do: The discovery/study of
antiparticles in the Dirac field. We can try to go with Dirac and try to explain how the negative
energy solutions are connected with the antiparticles. It was indeed something that corroborated
even more the Dirac equations. There are three plus in this equation. Dirac equation was able to
explain, basically, the inclusion of consistent relativity in the picture of quantum mechanics. Than
the probability density was definitive positive (a boost to interpret it more or less like a Schrödinger
equation). Moreover if we do the exact calculation (that we did not do) and try to outline a
nonrelativistic limit, it can also explain the fine structure of the atoms. Nevertheless negative
energy solution are still allowed, and we do not want an Hamiltonian that is unbounded from
below. Everything collapses. In 1930 Dirac try to interpret this negative solution imposing that,
since we are speaking about electrons that are connected to Dirac statistic (they are fermions, they
cannot have a wave function which is symmetric and antisimmetric) they cannot fill the same
energy level, using the Pauli's principle Dirac states that: We have a sort of infinitive sea of negative
energy electrons, since every energy level can be filled only with two electrons, we imagine that
the vacuum is constituted by all the negative energy electrons and no positive energy.
So the perfect vacuum is the situation in which all the negative energy solutions are filled and you
cannot put any more electrons there, you cannot have a jump from positive energy to a negative
energy solution. This is the stable situation. This implies that there are an infinite number of
electrons, an infinite amount of energy and an infinite amount of charges. This works because now
you can have a photon, with sufficient energy, that hits the negative energy electron and this
electrons gets the energy to jump to a positive energy solution. Of course this means that there is
gap energy.
In this situation you see the positive energy electron, but you also see a hole in the vacuum: A
vacancy of a negative energy electron, which means a vacancy of negative energy negative charge
particle. So in total (out of the vacuum) what we see is a positive energy positive charge objet with
the same mass of the electron. Dirac, out of this bases, postulated the fact that, since you have the
electron, we should also have a sort of positive charge electron. THEY THOUGHT HE WASCRAZY BUT
AFTER TWO YEARS THE CRAZY WERE THEM! VACCINES ARE EVILS!!!!11!
After two years the positron was found and the Dirac's theory was .... What we want to is: We have
this object
Dirac equation for the electron
But if the positron is around we can also have another Dirac equation for the charge conjugated
object with respect to the electron (positron)
Dirac equation for the positron
We want to find which transformation we have to apply to to move from the solution of the
electron equation to the solution of the positron ones. This implies a discrete transformation that
is called CHARGE CONJUGATION.
If the Lagrangian density is invariant under charge conjugation… The physically realisable situation
for the electron should correspond to physically realisable situation for the positron.

Lezione 26 - 23/11/2021
Let us consider the equation for the electron where, without justifying it, we already included the
interaction term by minimal substitution (Lecture 24). Cerchiamo un operatore che inverta la
carica elettrica delle particelle, ossia:
We would like to find the transformation in such a way that when applied twice we go back to the
same equation and also if applied twice (up to phase)
s.t.
irrelevant
And we would like to find in such a way that we can express it in terms of gamma matrices, up to
apossible conjugacion, because as we discussed, and we will see it in a while for time reverseal, the
simmetries that we can find for our theory is either unitary operators or antiunitary operators
(these latters can be written in terms of unitary times a charge conjugacion).
To change the relative sign of the equation we can do the adjoint and then move back to a form
where the spinor is a column vector (i.e. transposing it)
transpose
Where , so it is a column vector. Now we would like something such that it gives
us the Dirac equation for the positron. We can introduce an operator that we call such that if we
sandwhich on the left by and on the right by (which is the identity by definition of
inverse) we recover the equation ,
should be imvariant under , hence . Therefore we need to impose the fact that
Irrelevant phase (complex number)
The form that takes depends on the representation of the gammas. Notiamo ora che in
rappresentazione di Dirac, l’unica matrice γ non reale pura è , che è invece immaginaria pura,
infatti:

We find that has to anti-commute with and and it commutes with and
So the solution is
Let us see what is the action of this operator acts on the field (on a solution of the Dirac equation)
Define the energy Define the spin
Because
Dunque una coniugazione di carica scambia particelle con antiparticelle e inverte il segno dello spin.

Let us take a frame on which the particle is at rest, and to make it simple, let us take a negative spin
down solution
We want to see which is the solution which is charge conjugated to this
This is a positive energy spin up solution
If we want a formal invariance, we have to change the spinor, but then we have to have a
. So a physically possible motion of our particle in the electromagnetic field corresponds to
a possible motion of the antiparticle on the electromagnetic field.

Time reversal
The last symmetry is the so-called time reversal. From a classical point of view we know exactly
what does it mean: The particle go back on the line where it was moving. From our point of view,
we have to deal with measurement: We have state, we perform a serious of measurements that
acts on the states in time; if this correspond to a physical process, we would like that if we go back
with the movements (we invert the sequence of measurement we do), we should still get a physical
process.
From the point of view of the operator that acts on the spinor, we already discussed the fact that
the time reversal invariance has to be antilinear and antiunitary, because it has to commute in a
certain way with the hamiltonian. This means that we can represent our transformation with a
unitary operator times an operation of complex conjugation
Such that
However when we apply to a combination with complex coefficients operators
But this is irrelevant because even if when we take the transform the scale product we take the
complex conjugated of the scalar product, the physics goes with the modulus square.
Now we want to construct this operator. In order to do that, let us take the Dirac equation in the
following form (with the interaction with the electromagnetic field)
With
The Hamiltonian is the solution that comes out from the minimal substitution. We would like to find
an operator such that
With (we omit beacuse it is not affected)
We would that the transformed equation is untouched in form

To revocer the Dirac equation, we have to possible solutions
The second solution cannot be, just because in that we could move from a positive energy solution
to a negative energy solution if we speak about the time reversal spinor. But we want that the time
reversal does touch the solution in the sense that it cannot give us a negative energy solution which
is not physical, so we discards it. So we write the operator like
Taking the second option 2)
We want to construct an operator such that
A solution of this is the following
PCT invariance
Therefore this is the third discrete symmetry. It can be seen that these symmetries are not
individually symmetries of the real world, apart from QED where that are. However if we look at
some processes in nature that involve other forces (like weak interaction) we immediately see that
parity is not a symmetry of nature (neither charge conjugation). Hence, if we are at energies in
which what plays a role is only the electromagnetic interaction, we essentially have a conservation
of parity but as soon as we move to processes that involves weak interaction we lose it.
Nevertheless we find that, under very general assumptions (a local quantum field theory in which
bosons are quantized with commutation relations and fermions with anticommutation ones), the
product is a symmetry of the theory (we will not prove it).

Quantization of Dirac's field
We would like to do exactly what we did for the Klein-Gordon equation/field and moving to a
quantum picture with canonical quantization. However for the Dirac's field, since we were looking
for a certain first order differential equation, we found that not all of the fields that we have in
theory have a conjugated momenta
In principle we cannot perform a Legandre transformation to . However in this case (where the
only problem is that it is not present in the Lagrangian), we can recover the energy of the
system (which is usually connected to the Hamiltonian) using the Noether's theorem. In fact, we
already discussed that we can write down (even if is not the canonical hamiltonian)
Energy Trimomentum
From the Noeth. Th. we know that are conserved. An additional conserved quantity: Charge, it
comes from the invariance of under a gloabl phase.
Now we would like to argue the exactly the same thing that we did for the Klein-Gordon field: To
show that the solution we construct in terms of normal modes for the Dirac field, are in such a way
that, if we use these solutions in the expression of the energy of the system, we find something that
is really near to an infinite number of armonic oscillators.
Let us recall the structure of the Dirac field and let us promote it to an operator, so
With The operators are such that they satisfy the orthonormality relations
Where

Energy density and momentum in terms of creation and
annihilation operators
We want to write down the Hamiltonian of the system in terms of normal modes, so let us integrate
the Hamiltonian density
The the comes

from integrating
in
Using the
(new) Why is zero?
(already seen)
(already seen)
(new)

Lezione 27 - 24/11/2021
Anti-commutation relations and positive definite energy density
We would like to identify with annihilation and creation operators, also we would like to
avoid negative energies for 1-particle states. To have a consisten theory, in order to recover a sign
in the charge in normal order, we impose anticommutation relations: in this way, wave functions
will be invariant under exchange of particles (good). If instead we apply commutation relations, we
would get an operator such that the normal ordering contains a minus sign
Therefore, in order to get rid of , we impose the following anti/commutation relations:
Is so doing, we can write down the energy, and pass to normal ordering (hence subtrying the infinite
energy of the vacuum)
Fock space, antisymmetric two-particle state and Fermi statistic

At this point, we have to construct the Fock space such that these operators are annihilation and
creation operators, i.e.
The fact that we have anticommutation relations give us for free that, for instance, the two particles
states
If we exchage the two particles/states we get a minus sign: the states is totally antysimmetric: Fermi
statistic. How can we distinguish between the two particles? We remember that that the Dirac
lagrangian density has a symmetru under the U(1) global phase transformation

Therefore by Noether-s theorem, we obtain a conserved quantity: a current
Such that
Hence, we have
We see that is a bilinear in the fields, like the eenrgy and the momentum, however in the
definition of the charge we do not have the derivative with respect to time, so we do not get a
minus sign in the following expression
The charge was connected to the density to find the particle in and was positive definite, but
now in order to have the energy bounds from below we need to impose anticommutation relation.
In this way we move to a normal ordered charg with a minus sign
The minus allows us to distinguish them. If we go back to the interaction we introduced via minum
substitution
Interaction term
The interaction term tells us that we have the interaction of a charge current with our
electromagnetic field . The current is the same as before, but now with a coupling that
enters in the definition and it gives us the charge of the particle that is moving. So we include it in
the definition of the normal ordered charge
We interpret it as the elctric
charge of the particle
So if a particle give us a , the other particle gets a (In our notation is negative)
Electron Positron
So we have a way to distingiush the two states: same mass, same energy (positive for both), same
momentum, but different charge

Locality and causality
Let us go back to the fields and let us see what does it mean to impose quantization relations
among and operators for the fields:
Equal time
The only non-zero are

the mixed terms
The temporal part
disappears
Since we integrate in
the whole space
We get what we expect if we would have impose directly the commutation relations. We can write
down in a sort of canonical form the commutation relations that we impose on the field and the
conjugate momentum
Can be checked with

some calculations

Now we can make the following consideration: we can also write an anticommutation relation for
and in such a way that we do not have the same time, i.e. We move to a different inertial frame. It
can be proved that the anticommutation relation is an invariant object, so if it is zero in an inertial
frame, it must be zero in every else.
If we go to the general quantum mechanics, as in the case of the KG field, we would like to preserve
locality and causality for our field theory, but this goes with the commutatior: in order to say that if
we have a certain observable and we measure it at a certain given time , in a certain IF, but at two
different space points so that the two measuraments cannot interfere each other (i.e.
anticommutation relation = 0 between the two points). The KG was already in the sistuation in
which the field itself can be defined as an observable. However, in the Dirac field:
The Dirac field cannot be an observable
But this is not a problem, because the field is not something we want to measure: the property of
the particles we want to measure are the usual quantum number, like energy, charge, momentum
etc… So we want to construct these latters in a way that they are observable, so their commutator
in two different space point at the same time must be zero. This is indeed the case, since the
observable we have are actually bilinear in the fields (so it contains two fields)
We can prove that if the fields anticommute, the bilinear in the fields do commute. This comes from
the fact that the commutator of, for instance, an object like
The calculation can be, for instance, using the bilinear that we know
We want to see that for
Exchange, get a

Lezione 28 - 25/11/2021
Massless fermions (Weyl neutrinos)
More details Maiani p. 197
We consider the Dirac equatio in the limit of zero mass:
If we go back to the expression in terms of and matrices, we find that we do not have the
matrix anymore: just the three alpha matrices and the identity. We can immediatly understand
that, without the beta matrix, it leaks one of the source of the fact that we have to move forcly to a
four-dimension treatment of our case/theory. In this case we can decouple the composition of the
two 2-dimensional spinors that we used and move back to the kiral representation
Kiral representation
We choose to take
diagonal
In this representation, if we put the the spinor in the differential equation, we find that
that the equation splits in two equations for the two 2-dimensional spinor
We remember that this object is the elicity of the particle
In this case we have . Let us consider the equations, and let us see
what it represents (which kind of physical sistuation)
neutrinos
antineutrinos
neutrinos
antineutrinos
From a mathematical point of view we are in a situation in which we have all the possibilities
around, however what comes out from measurement (so from nature, like in berta decay) is that
when thay are around, we find just neutrinos with negative helicity (L-neutrinos) and
antineutrinos with positive helicity (R-antineutrinos). We can build a theory a theory using just 2-
dimensional component, but since in the standard model we want to treat also other interactions
on top of the electroweak one and the good formalism is to keep the 4-dimensional spinor, we
realise that a good form to put our equation is to continue to use 4D spnor, but since the actual
spinor that enters in the weak interaction is just the left-handed part of the spinor we use
projectors

We can separate the solutions into two invariant subspace by means of the projection operators:
They are indeed projectors
We find immediatly
So if we use 4D spinor in the lagrangian of the standard model we will have around these
objects
This was just to make us confindent that when we will move to electroweak theory, we will have
such objects around. For the moment we stick on QED so we do not see them, we will treat Dirac
equation as a massive equation and the state that will be described is a massive letpon, e.g.
Electron, muon, tauon etc..

MAXWELL EQ.s AND EM FIELD QUANTIZATION
Electromagnetic field
We need to move from the classical treatment to the quantized treatment of the field also for the
electromagnetic field. In this case, the equations that the field obey comes directly from the
Maxwell's equations, that are very well experimentally proven.
We want to show that, from our point of view, the object that we would like to deal with at the
level of the quantize field, is the electromagnetic field, which is the 4-potential. In the end, we
would like to show a property of the set of equations that describe the EM field: the invariance
under Gauge transformation, i.e. We can redefine the fields in such a way that the equations of
motions remain unchanged. However, this symmetry with respect to the redefinition of the fields, is
such that, even if we would like to write something that is manifestly covariant in terms of the four
components, what we have in physical object that we measure (energy and so on), is not
expressible in terms of all the 4-components of the field.
Actually, we do not have 4 degrees of freedom, but they are just 2 which are physical. We will have
to adjust the quantization procedure with an ad-hoc quantization procedure that can be done in
order to keep the manifestly invariance under LT of the theory we are trying to construct.
There is another way to quantize the EM field: choose a physical gauge, in which we have
something which is expressed only with the two physical d.o.f., breaking the manifestly Lorentz
invariance. In so doing, we gain that in the end, what we quantize is just with 2 d.o.f.. Usually we
prefer to keep manifestly Lorentz invariance, so we quantize Gupta-Bleuler.
Maxwell's equations
We have the 4 Maxwell-s equations in the vacuum in terms of the fields. In the Lorentz-Heaviside
units
and obey a continuity equation
We move to a different object, instead of 4 first-order differential equation, we move to second

order differential equations: the potentials
EQ. DI MAXWELL E QUANTIZZAZIONE CAMPO EM NEL VUOTO Pagina 1

Scalar and vector potencials
Let
We can use these two potencials to write the differential equations in terms of them
Gauge invariance
The relation # does not carachterize in a unique way the magnetic field. The Maxwell's equations
are invariant under the following transformations
Gives the same
Gives the same
Due to the gauge, we can choose (choosing the gauce) such that the following two pieces
Lorentz gauge
Therefore must satisfy
We can impose up to 2 constains, therefore we can impose

Covariant form of Maxwell's equations
Let us move to covariant expression in terms of the field. It is very easy to achive, because we can
express the current in terms of a 4-vector
External current
Moreover we know that the D'Alambertian
So we can write down the differential equations in just one differential equation that involves the 4-
vectors and that it manifestly covariant
This is gauge invariant
We have that our field is such that, if we perform a gauge transformation on the field, these
equations remain the same in form
Lorentz gauge
Another way to write down the Maxwell's equations in a covariant way, is to keep a form in which
we have the fields (instead of potencials, even if at a certain point we will call the field too),
introducing the electromagnetic tensor, which is an antisymmetric tensor. Written in terms of the
field is
In this way
Therefore the electromagnetic tenso is a traceless matrix

Therefore the Maxwell's equations can be written as
Inhomogeneus Maxwell's equations (with source)
homogeneus Maxwell's equations (without source)

Using Bianchi's identities
Dual of F
With (Exchanged components)
The dual tensor does not contain sources, unlike . Because the conversion from to requires the interchange of electric
and magnetic fields, implies the absence of magnetic monopoles.

Larangian density
Now that we have and , we would like to find a Lagrange density such that if we apply
Hamilton's principle we get Euler-Lagrange equations that corresponds to the equations that we
wrote. Of course electromagnetism came out from the equations and it did not came out from the
lagrangian density, but according to what we are going to do (the formalization of the theory, the
canonical quantization and then the description of the interaction with the Dirac field), we will need
the langrangian density that give us the differential equations that go under the name of
Maxwell'equations.
We can procede in two ways
From Lagrangian to the equations of motion

What we can construct using and a Lorentz scalar, for example . But we have
also other choices as scalar, e.g. , however this latter is not gauge invariant, hence object like
these cannot enter the definition of the lagrangian. If instead we contract with its dual , we do
not obtein a scalar, but a pseudoscalar (we do not want it, because it change sign if we include
particles). Since if we constract two duals of , we get the same result as conctracting , we choose
We will calculate later
Let us see that it gives the correct equations of motion , by plugging in the
They are the same object

They are the same object
Maxwell's
equations in
form of the
potencials
We did not say that, but these were not the only terms that can be added in order to have a Lorentz
and gauge invariant lagrangian density; it is possible to add terms of higher dimensional in the
fields. Terms like , which is a scalar too and it is also gauge invariant. However, we can
justify the non-presence of these terms using a principle that we will not see in this course and that
tells that it has a higher dimension in mass and hence is not normalizable.

From equations of motion to the Lagrangian
Now we can justify the by taking the Maxwell's equation and going back to the construction of
the lagrangian density using the Hamilton's principle. Letus impose that
Total derivative: Surface term
Integrating by
parts
Changing the
name
is gauge-imvariant and a scalar (Lorentz invariant).

Now we have to keep in mind that the fact that we have invariance under gauge transformations, tells us that we do not have
actually four indipendent components around, but only two degrees of freedom. Now we would like to move to the
hamiltonian picture usign the Legandre transformations (if possible), find the conjugated momentanand imposing thr
commutwtion relations among the fields and the conjugated momenta. In this case, we are in the case of boson field, therefore
we would impose a commutation relations. Nevertheless, we will find that there is a problem: They cannot all be imposed, in
the sense that we have a conjugated momentum to the field which is directly equal to zero. Hence the transformation between
the fields and the derivative with respect to time of the fields is not invertible.

Lezione 29 - 30/11/2021
Canonical quantization of the field Problems arising from
the vanishing of the momentum conjugated to
A short recap of what we did in the last lectures. We moved to the quantization of the
electromagnetic field, which is the last ingredient we need in order to treat our interactive theory.
The goal is not to quantize the free field, that is not interacting, because it is irrelevant for our
purpose, that is using the theory is some experiments.
We moved to a covariant description of the Maxwell equations already at the level of the magnetic
and electric fields, introducing the electromagnetic tensor
Two equations are with the charge, the other two equations can be written either in terms of the
Bianchi identity or with the dual of
4 equations, but only 2 degrees of freedom are good to
describe physics
Another way to write down the equations is to move to the potentials, that we call field. We can
see that is not a case that phenomenologically what was found, as Maxwell equations, were the
equations in terms of the fields. Because we see that they have an invariance under a redefinition of
the potential. And the invariance is such that the fields are actually invariant under this ???. So the
terminology in terms of the magnetic and electric field is unique. If we move to the potential, we
find that we can transform our four vector a transformation called gauge transformation
(trasformazione di scala)
And find that the equation above are invariant (also the electromagnetic tensor is gauge invariant).
The choice we will do is such that in the gauge chosen They come from
Lorentz gauge Maxwell's

equation in the
L. Gauge
Now we describe these equations in terms of Lagrangian density and we find that, starting from
Maxwell equations, we can say that they are the Euler-Lagrange equation of a certain Lagrangian
density, finding that
We discusses that this is the minimal form that gives us the correct Maxwell equations, however
from certain symmetry point if view, this lagrangian could have additional pieces (gauge invariant,
scalar and so on...). They end up to be of higher dimension in terms of the mass with respect this
term. This correspond to another principle, that is not a principle, but a something that governs the
construction of the lagrangians (like the one in the standard model): The other pieces are found to
be not renormalizable, while the first we have written it is.

If we want to describe a theory in terms of renormalizable theory, we can keep only that piece. This
Lagrangian can be written in terms of the derivative of
Now we want to quantize the theory. First, we introduce the conjugated momenta of the field and
impose the commutation relations
However what comes out from this calculation is

It is an The consequence of the
antisimmetric fact that not all the
tensor modes are physical
Therefore is not accomplished.
The alternative is to choose a Gauge in which is manifest the fact that we have two degrees of
freedom, like the
Coulomb gauge
Gauge fixing
However if we do that, in the end, we will have something that is not manifestly Lorentz invariant.
Anyway, we have to make non zero at least formally, and that becomes zero in a certain
approximation. I change a little bit the Lagrangian density, in a way that it will give us the Maxwell
equations in the gauge we choose. We write down a constrain system
What we want to find
They come from the

lagrangian density
of the Klein Gordon
field without mass
Let us see what happens if we take the difference between the two

Gauge fixing
We found a set of equations that are not gauge invariant. Using this new lagrangian.
Gupta-Bleuler quantization
We may object that, because we are in the Lorentz gauge, is equal to zero. However, this is not
immediately zero, since we can enlarge the space in which it acts (the Fock's space), in such a way
to constrain not only the phisical states, but also additional nonphysical states on which the
operator is different from zero. We still keep that fact that the mean value
We construct a formal theory that goes to the physical theory we know when I caracterize it. It
called the covariant quantization of the electromagnetic field or Gupta-Bleuler quantization.
We impose
Let us see what happens component to component

On the other hand, if we take the other component
We can write the commutation relations in a compact form
Temporal, longitudinal and transverse modes

Now we want the quanta: To move to the expression of this fields in terms of normal modes (with
annihilation and creation operators) and, since we imposed the commutation relation to the field,
find an analogues three of what we did. This is the formal way. We need a basis of four vectors in
. can be chosen to be
The first vector we can choose is the total time like vector
Let us introduce two vectors that are orthogonal to , in such a way I can write down the
transversal components
Then we need another vector that has to be orthogonal to then other three
It can be checked that they obey these relations

If we are in the system in which has this form, we can find that indeed
Every component is a sort of Klein Gordon field: We get the same composition in terms of positive
energy negative energy solutions and we can normalize the solutions exactly as we did for the Klein
Gordon field. So we write directly the normalization that we found, then we have to sum over the
polarization
Since we know how to project out
The expression for the annihilation operator is
From this and it follows that (not demonstrated) the

quantization relations of the fields are Nota: This is the manifestation of the fact if we
normalize the one particle state, we will have a negative
norm: Not physical, not part of our Hilbert space
If we take a one particle state
And take its norm
If we choose , we find a negative norma object, which is non physical

We can solve this observing that the states that created the problem have no counterpart in the
canonical quantization of the electromagnetic field; we have seen in fact that the physical states are
only those associated with tue transverse polarization vectors. The states created by and by
(in the frame whefe is along the third axis) are unphysical. The theory that we have
quantized so far is not electrodynamics, because of the extra term in the Lagrangian:
The basic idea of the covariant quantization of the electromagnetic field, or Gupta-Bleuler
quantization, is to start from an apparently different theory and to recover a quantum theory of the
electromagnetic field imposing a restriction on the Fock space: We define the subspace of physical
states requiring that for any two physical states.
Conditions fulfilled by the physical states

In order to impose the physical constrain, let see which is the minimal prescription I can require on
order to get on the physical states gives you zero.
Where
Let us characterise the physical state requiring , this implies what

we were looking for
Let us see what means, so how the physical states are characterised in order to be a solution of
this equation. Let us write the plus components
Using
Now we want that , therefore we need to require that

Extra: We see that the two transverse photons and and any linear combination
of them, are physical states.
This is Good news, since we know (from lecture 28) that these are true degrees of freedom of the
photon.
Consider now the subspace generated by and

We see that neither nor a are physical states, this is also good news, since the
state is just the negative norm state, and a , even if it has a positive norm, does
not correspond to a physical polarization state.
Therefore the physical states should be written in terms of the following operators
Why this form? Because if we take the commutation relation
If we apply to a state, we get
So a physical states is defined is such a way that we constrain the number of longitudinal and
temporal components, but not the transvers components. Therefore, we can write our general
physical state in such a way to have
If we take the scalar product of an object like that with another physical object, which is the role
played by (which has no counterpart in the canonical quantization)? How interact with the
rest? Firs we see that it has zero norm:

It can be also proven that they are orthogonal to the physical part
is orthogonal to all physical states
Energy and momentum densities and contribution of the

physical states
Let us write down the energy energy/Hamiltonian of the system in term of the annihilation and
creation operators. This can be done in two ways
The other way is to notice that the lagrangian density
If we write down the expression in terms of the annihilation and creation operator of the Klein
Gordon, we get the expression above
Now we would like to take the mean value. Since
It remains only the transverse component
Contribute only
from , ,
for the momentum
too
Because of
the physics is governed only by the independent component
The Photon

Lezione 30 - 03/12/2021
INTERACTIONS
Free field propagators
Non homegeneous differential equations and Green's function: the
case of the scalar field
Let us consider the Klein-Gordon field with current (so a source, instead of ):
In order to solve the equation, we use the Green's function. Therefore we want to find the solution
of
If we know the solution of the homogeneous equation, we find that
Plugging it in
Hom. Eq.
Now the problem moves to how to find such a function G. Hence, we Fourier transform, which
allows us to move to an algebraic equation which is solvable and then we antifourier transform.
Putting them in , what we have to solve is
That means that the green function is
We must take into account the fact that the denominator in the integral is singular at the points
which correspond to propagation of free waves, . To do this, it is convenient to work in
the complex plane of the variable . The singularity of is found on the real axis, for
, and each particular solution is found by assigning a path in the complex plane to carry out the
integral in .
INTERAZIONI Pagina 1
Fourier transform and integration in
There is ambiguity on how to perform the integral: we have to choose a path in the complex plane
avoiding these singularities, but we can choose different paths since we did not have imposed the
boundaries conditions yet, that tell us which solutions are physical. Let us see what different tipes
of paths give in terms of the Green function.
Closed paths
To have
a real
value in
the end
In the same way we define
These solutions are solution of the homogeneous equation,we can immediatly see taking
Integral on closed paths of analytical functions
(no poles) are null
Open paths
In general, these paths give a solution to the inhomogeneous equation. Two different paths give the
same result if we can continuously deform one into the other without encountering any singular
point of , otherwise they differ by combinations of the integrals around the singularity, i.e. by
solutions of the inhomogeneous equation.
Desplace the paths (left) or the points (right) gives the same result in the limit . We will
choose the right point of view
Retarded Green's function
The retarded Green’s function, ,
corresponds to the condition that
for , which is that the result should
be different from zero only after switching on
the source at the coordinate origin (causality
condition). In this case, the integration path
must be completely above the singularity.
We are in the situation of the Jordan's lemma, so in order to perform the calculation we use the
Cauchy's theorem. We close our countrour (upper or lower) depending on the sign of the temporal
term at the exponent No singularities
If We integrate over
It makes sense, since we expect to see nothing before switching on our current.
If We integrate over
Since we are integrating clockwise, we have a sign in the residual theorem:
By Jordan's lemma
We partial fraction
the denominator
Res. th
This means that positive and negative energy solutions are both transported forward in time
Advanced Green's function
We can consider the case in wich two roots are
displaced in the upper plane. The considerations
about the path are the other way around with respect
to the retarded Green function. The symmetric
condition, that should vanish for , takes us to
the advanced Green’s function
Skipping the calculations, the only solution is the one using the upper plane:
This means that positive and negative energy solutions are both transported backward in time.
This situation in which we sort of transposed the solutions with positive or negative energy
backward and forward in time, trows back to what we said, more or less, about the whole theory.
Now we want to find the same solution (the Green function) for the situation in which we have a
quantum field. It is very trivial to understand that moving the positive energy solution forward is
consistent with causality, because in our mind we already have that the particle is the positive
energy solution and this is trasported forward in time. But now, the negative energy solution is
linked to the antiparticle. What we discussed a bit is that the positive energy antiparticle is seen as
a lack of a negative energy solution in the sea. This means that the positive energy antiparticle of
the sea can be seen as a negative energy solution that goes backward in time, in order to have a
positive energy.
Hence in the case of the quantum intepretation of our theory we have to move to a Green function
(a propagator), which has no sense from the classical point of view, and that have different kind of
displacement of the roots according to which is the positive and negative energy solution.
Lezione 31 - 07/12/2021
The Feynman propagator for the scalar field

We started to understand how to construct the propagators and we saw we need to chose the path
in the complex plane
If we take the complex plane for , the two roots

are on the real axis. So to overcome the difficulties (the
divergences) on path we can choose different paths
which lead me to different solutions of the differential
equation. Hence, the different Green's functions depend
on the boundary conditions.
We found that if we do an integration in a close path we
find a solution of the homogeneous equation
If we take the integration from to we can choose a path in which both the poles are
overcome from below or from above, or one from below and one from above: In total we have 4
possibilies. Taking infinitesimal circle is like to move a bit up the pole from the real axis and take the
integration in the real axis, therefore we understand the limit for . In this way we get the
advanced Green function
Or we can do the other way around, moving a bit down the pole, in this case we get the retarded
Green function
This is fine classically, but it is not correct from a quantum mechanical point of view. The correct
one (with respect to the causality) for the Dirac field is the Feynman propagator, which is a mixture
of them. Now we choose a different propagation for the and the
We have two different propagations of the positive and negative frequency solutions. This means
that when we go to the complex plane and we look at the displacement of our poles from the real
axes, we have to displace the solution with while goes down . This means that for
we close our integration counter upward and then we let , and if we have the
other way around we close our integration counter downward in order to use Jordan's
lemma.
So when we integrate in this way,
this is exactly the same situation of
one of these two
Therefore what we have is
Propagator as the vacuum expectation value of T-ordered

product of two fields
Now let us see if we can justify this option. Let’s go back to what we know and let us try to construct
the following process: Creating a boson particle in a certain point, the integral in the is the one
particle state in at the time . Now let us ask ourselves which is the probability amplitude to get
this particle in another point at a subsequent time . This is the scalar product of the one
particle state in at times the one particle state in at .
Remember that
If we want to create a charge in , we need instead of , hence we need
If
It annihilates
Diagrammatically what we can think is the following:

This is a part of a scattering process, for instance
a positive pion that is created and annihilated in a
scattering of two nucleons: a proton and a
neutron.
Direct process Reverse process
It annihilates
These processes gives the same initial and final states.

From a quantum mechanical point of view we have to sum over all the processes that give us the
same final state starting from the same initial state, so we have to sum over all the probability
amplitudes of the same process. Because of this we have to consider also the inverse process.
This operation is called the vacuum expectation value of T-ordered product of two operatos
Since we are speaking about bosons

Time ordered product
Thus the T-product is
Now we can connect this object that came from physical intuition with the integral that came
out in the other way. If we express our fields in terms of normal modes and we use commutation
relation
Now we can move to a more convenient and more covariant way to express the Feyman
propagator, because we still have a theta, which is a stepfuction, not manifestly covariant. The
integral representation of the theta can be written as
• Upper plane: No poles

• Lower plane: poles
THE PRESCRIPTION
The representation is such that I can incorporate this additional one dimensional integral there
in order to recover an integration in
Change of variable
I want to collect the exponent and I notice

that, since I integrate in the entire volume I
take in the integration both and
Therefore
One can also prove that this is the Green function for the operator
We can prove that this is the Green function of that operator also by doing the direct differentiation
of the vacuum expectation value of the order product of the fields. Let us take the derivative only
with respect to , we have to calculate the following object
Acts only on x:
Linked to
Therefore it is the green function of our operator
Now we know what is the propagator and that is connected to the vacuum expectation value of
time ordered product of the field. This was the propagator of the scalar field, and now we want the
propagator of the Dirac field and electromagnetic field.
Feynman's propagator for the spinor field

We want to show that, by analogy to the case of the scalar field, the Feynman propagator comes
out to be:
In the case of the scalar field the time ordered product of the two fields of the same if we
interchange them, however in the case of the fermions it is not. So we have to change its definition,
requiring the antisymmetric propriety because must fulfill anticommutation relations:
Now we want to prove that this is actually a Green function for the Dirac equation. Hence we apply
the Dirac differential operator of this distribution
If we want to write it in terms of an integral in we can do that by taking
In fact
This means that the Feynman propagator of the Dirac field is
Feynman's propagator for the electromagnetic field

Let us say we have four times the propagator of the scalar field, with mass equal to zero. But now
the order product of the two field is a tensor
Where
Now we are back to bosonic fields Massless field
We can prove that this is the Green function of the dalambertian
This is for the Green function for the expression without the term that is dependent on the gauge
Because we are in the Lorentz gauge with Lagrange

parameter one. This is called the Feynman Gauge,
a particular Lorentz gauge.
This is a peculiar choice, what we can do is to quantize the field always
in a covariant gauge, but a bit more general, leaving a
The is such that the guy which is attached in any case goes to zero when you sandwich it, but
we have a parameter around that goes in the propagator
If we try to look for the Green function of this operator, it has an addition piece. This is a proof that
in the end this piece does not affect the physics
Lezione 32 - 09/12/2021
Electromagnetic interaction of fields and lagrangian density.

Now we have, more or less, all the ingredients that we need to study the lagrangian of the QED.
Quantum electrodynamics
We want to study the QED interaction between e.m. Field and spin field. In the classical theory,
the inter. between field and particle is described by the minimal substitution , in
quantum mech. . The equations if motion are
Lagrangian density
Moving back to the classical Lagrangian density, the free theory which describes photons and
electrons is obtained by combining the Maxwell Lagrangian with the Dirac Lagrangian
We want to move from the free particle Lagrangian to obtain an interacting , to do so, we use the
quantum form minimal substitution, therefore we substitute the momentum with
Interaction
Current
Gauge transformation and Gauge Principle
Now let us have a look at the symmetries of this lagrangian. Without the interaction term, we saw
that the lagrangian was invariant under gauge transformations, but also the interaction term is not
gauge independent, because it does not involve . Let us see what happens with a gauge
transformation
Hence is not invariant under gauge, but there is still a symmetry. We know that the Dirac
lagrangian is invariant under a global phase transformation, and also is, nevertheless we can try to
transform the field by a phase which depends on the point:
In this case we have an addition piece
If now we perform the following transformation of only the electromagnetic part of the field
Under these transformations

is gauge invariant
We can introduce the so-called Covariant derivative
We can prove that it is covariant, i.e. It transforms like the field under the global phase
transformation
Hence, transforms like the field. We can now write the lagrangian density in a compact form
This lagrangian comes directly from the experience (Maxwell equations), and we checked that it is
invariant under certain gauge transformations. Now we can also do a reverse logic: This invariance
of the lagrangian under certain transformation can be taken as a sort of fondative principle in order
to find a lagrangian. This Lagrangian, of course, has to describe nature, but it can be assumed that
the invariance of the lagrangian density of our theory (that has to describe nature) is actually gauge
invariance, where gauge invariance means exactly , namely it has to be invariant under a local
gauge transformation. Of course is a peculiar gauge transformation, it is very simple; so
electromagnetism is such that we can impose the gauge principle, in which the gauge principle is
the fransformations in , so it is an abelian group.
How can we construct such a lagrangian? We can start with a free Lagrangian
And impose that this lagrangian is invariant under certain gauge transformation, we introduce the
covariant derivative and we move .We know the form of the covariant derivative and, in
order to have a which is invariant under these transformations, we have to add a three part of the
field and we have to impose that this field transform in such a way that the covariant derivative
transforms in a covariant way
The key point of the transformation is the part , which is a phase transformation.
If we do want such a simple transformation, but we look for more complicated ones, we get a more
complicated theory which probably can be the theory describing some phenomena of nature. An
example is strong interaction, a theory that is constructed basically in the same as ???. However, the
difference of QCD with QED is that instead of (a transformation), there is a more
complicated object, a non-abelian group. In particular, for QCD is . We can repeat all the
steps of the second part using a local transformation of the color group , skipping all the
global transformation of , because we want to see if these local transformations give
us something which is dynamical. Indeed it does: QCD, the interaction of the matter field with
gluons.
Experimentally
Parameters of the group

The genrator (An hermitian matrix)
are the generators, and the generators obey the algebra
So we know, more or less, the group according to which we would like to impose the gauge
principle. In the QCD case, we have an additional index
We introduce A field which carries this color index
Now we impose that this lagrangian has to be invariant under the gauge principle and we find
So you want that the covariant derivative behaves in such a way that when it acts on it gives
back U acting on .
Now let’s impose i.e.

Let’s look at operator
level i.e. remove
Let’s multiply by and get rid of
This is the transformation that the field has to satisfy and it can be seen as the general form of
the gauge transformation that we wrote before.
Now we have the matter part (which has the covariant derivative) and we know how the fields
and have to transform (remember: is the gluon field) . At this point we have to add the
kinetic part of the gluons and , inspired by QED, we can add a piece in the A-part: the color index
We add the new pieces by rewriting the tensor
This Lagrangian density is invariant under
OBS : Looking at QED lagrangian density

from the point of view of the interaction (product of fields) we have
1) matter field: i.e. a two external legs diagram (fermion in - fermion out)
2) is a sort of free propagation of the particle, but here we are
using the “original” definition of This means that there are two fields involved
(photon in - photon out)
3) interaction: three fields involved
In this framework the e.m. field interacts only with the the fermions. Indeed looking at
the first term we have D which contains the A tensor, then we have still this kind of
interaction. We can immediately imagine that in the previous lagrangian density are
present many more interactions due to different colors.
(note: this is an overview of what we will see with the scattering matrix)
Regarding the second term it wasn’t a problem in the QED lagrangian, but now it includes not only
the propagation of the gluon (in QED it was free prop. of photon) but also different objects that we
have never seen:
• product between and 3 field term: gluons can interact, photons cannot
(e.g. we can have a gluon which split in two gluons)
• square of 4 field interacting
In particular one can see that the 3 field term is responsible of the asintotic freedom:
in QCD the coupling depends on an energy scale and if we go to high energies the 3 fields term
makes the coupling to disappear, conversely the coupling in QED will raise as we increase the energy.
the behaviour respect to energy of the coupling constant comes from the vacuum polarisation
diagram and here we see the difference between the theories (even if they are similar since the
building blocks of the theories are the same)
The interplay of these two objects makes the coupling constant to go down.
This behaviour of the coupling constant makes the theory to start non-perturbative and to become
perturbative at high energies
Quantization
We are going to perform a canonical quantization starting from our QED lagrangian density.
We can rewrite it as:
We know that Lagrangian is a function of the Dirac field and e.m. field, then we can construct
the conjugate momenta in order to impose the usual commutation relation for canonical
quantization.
The commutation rules are the same as the free field case
Now if we want to quantize we have to remember that there is the problem of covariant
quantization of the e.m. field, so we have(?) the gauge fixing term in the lagrangian density
(and then also the momentum get this term).
Let’s impose the commutation relations:
Let’s move to the Hamiltonian:
Note: this is true whenever we have

non derivative interactions in
Lagrangian density
A digression on quantization
We have already imposed our Gauge invariance with a local transformation etc…
and it gives us the following Lagrangian density
and this is NOT the quantum Lagrangian, this is still classical.
If we want to move to the quantum Lagrangian we have to add the Gauge fixing term and it
has to preserve the Lorentz manifestly invariant character of the electromagnetic part of the
Lagrangian
Now if we make our Gauge transformation we notice that is not gauge invariant anymore.
Then let’s take the transformation:
Applying these transformations we find that we have an additional piece.
In ordere to construct a gauge invariant quantum lagrangian (i.e add a gauge fixing term)
let’s consider the following replacement:
for QED there are no other requirement for and ) (in QCD it is not that easy)
Let’s see how change under transformation
(Remember: the rest of the Lagrangian is invariant under this transformation)
this is the new term which is not invariant under transformation
Now let’s interpret the new field as a new dynamical field and then let’s add
the kinetic term also for this field
and now we require that transform in the following way:
this extra piece is exactly equal to the new term we found before but with opposite sign.
Recap: at a classical level we have the invariance of the Lagrangian under the gauge
transformation , at a quantum level this invariance is not only the invariance at the
classical level but we have to add another field that transforms as well (where the was
called now (?) ). At this point we have:
(Note: also the last term is invariant under gauge transformation)

—> Now is a field of the lagrangian, so once we go and look for the commutation/anti
commutation relations we have also to include the other comm. relation for this new scalar
field (look for conj. momentum etc…). However the new field appears only in the last term
which is a free kinetic term. So we have the usual interaction between matter and e.m. field
but now we have also a free field around which doesn’t affect the dynamics of the rest of
the lagrangian. Then is connected to the Abelian character of QED (BRST-symmetry).
LEZIONE 33 14/12/2021
TIME EVOLUTION OF QUANTUM SYSTEMS
typical do particle Physics scattering Measure the types :

"
The Measure we in is → 2
parti des hit fixed target scatta in d-her directions and possible create
f) parti particles
a → new
des hit each ather the antar of ( i e.

→ in mass Collider Physics) → e.
g. HEP LHC
,
( Note : LHC Physics is more Complicated ,

since hadron s are
composed by quark s
Non etheless the idea the two partichesaltide production of

,
is sama : → new
partides
•
pictorial schema :
A. : imiti al state, which is assumeotto 1. comefar from the post (t a) = -
A t.be free particle state (i. plane

a e wave )
di
.
t
à
☆
>
È
-
§ final
: state, which is
asswmedtof.gr farfree particlefuture
•
be a state
in the (t =
(i. e
+
.
al
plane wave )
[Remender eigen state of the Momentum and energy]

: the plan e wave is an the
OBI : this scheme is not exactby correct :
•
&: is not a free particle
The fact that it doesn't internet with ather partieles can s till be understood , ho Wever the particle
internet also with the cloud of virtual particles that pop up from the vacuum and then getreabsoroed
" "
A particle is not a pointlike system, but it is a complicated Object

.
.
We can take this fact into account by using a re normali 2- ed field Instead of a bare field ,
but
for our purpose it is
sufficienti the free pictura .
• In model , the Interaction takes place in a limited volume around the

our
target particle .
We schematica this fact saying that the particle is at an distance in Space and as time
This is an idealizzation → note ✗ act
Èfatalmente "
time
Actually ,
we showed include a sort of adiabatichepotest's : Flinteracti.net E) ,
= È #Interaction
dans
ping factor → E- o : no
damping
t = as :
full dam ping no Interaction
,
We showed do this , since we are ping to study also the electro interaction ,
that not on by is not confined in a volume , but it is also a Interaction
magneti
range long .
Ho Wever, we Won' t do that .
Let' s consideri the in itial state li > .
We can write it in the Schroedinger representation or in the

Heisenberg representation
both repr the sandwich
"
[Heisenberg
"
[ Schrodinger : field depends on time operator doesn't defend time in

)
→
(
, on .
→
<µ , j , µ > musf be the sama
: " doesn't stepend "
,
i depends "
(since it is connected to what we Measure)
✓
tosti > → evolution time
by the xp of the Hamilton Ian
in is given e .
i. e the HamiltonIan is the generator

of the infinitesima transformation in time
→ iosa ) is the solution of the Schrodinger line equation
)
-
i
f- #D= Its Hsiu>
e
How
go ing to Study a peculiar class of systems
we are ,
in which the Hamilton Ian that
governs your system can be Written as :
"
1-1=1ti Itis
"
+
=
free particle Hamilton Ian + interaction Hamilton ian
T
"
this part duces nost of the =D 1-si perturbati
energy on
~
pro
Nate In QED we are poing to Study

: the system perturbati relg
( probabili ty I < penturb.is/ ' ~ i ~ o ≈
% . verysm all with respect the free part )
→
•
How to more
from Ii > to If >
"
state
i# ᵗ
into É % li >
The li > evolve s as tort ) > = e- , i> , at the final time it has evolved
""
The amplitude of probability of the processo that maries Iis to evolve into
If > is
given by if /
e- Ii )
Def S Matrix ( or S operator ) È stands for scattering )

"
: - -
s is sit . Stolt = -
al > =
tort = + ad >
↳ consideri
prob amplitude ( particular di lo g) Sgi È: toglititi > tog 1 SIA )
a '
ng l
.
,
= = = .
→
prob = I Sg ;
We can S in what ver representation want ( e. Schmid we pictura or He is

pictura ) ,
use
g. .
.
but the calculations can be more

the res ult is the s a me ,
Extra
difficult .
Remember Sch r : torti > Ò (*

:
than Schr repr The reasons is that in AFT

: .
, In QFT the He is repr is often more

Useful
1$ ☒ ) , Ò ( t )
. . . .
He is
.
.
:
the operators are just fields so ,
in the He is repr the . .
quantum fields dependboth on ✗ and t
White the Schr they nkpendonly natural
in .
rep .
oh × The He is
.
.
repr
. is there
fare more
from the point of view

of the Lorentz covariante
Interaction pictura i. e .
free fields
1- = FÉIN >
up to how we studies It' in the Heisenberg pictures Gate
""
oè
""
I How >
have to steal with Interaction
we
interaction
Ideal representation ) : we can use It to evolve the operator and Hint to evolve the states
↳ i"" i ""
è
""
0, A) = e a e- I $ ti> =
tosti> ⊕
OBED : 0± evolveson la according to the free field Hamilton Ian → it can be expanded
normal modes in
with Creation /annihilation Operators
Remember :
of Counter evolution of tosit )) as ( ) ' ""
from sort
"
Haiti full evolution

"
> has the → e
oasi) : comes a -
it remain s by the evolution due to It int

t
on
sehr equation ""

We can it
È ultiply and divide by è bere]
.
prove i ¥ ,$ > + , a>
.IQ/I--E?ff;EEei?fj:ss-=1t:ti&=
,
E :( (i I. Ass) ↓ Été " # + Him

""
i ¥10 ±
> i e Ass) = -
Ita città ios > + e

""
' "
> Di E. * ±
> ti ¥>
"
DA evolve sas a free state ed by It;
govern
ÌmedependentpertnrbationtheoryandDysonfrm
[ SÌ " bothsidesiti.tl
¥ #> # &> (from ns.wpt.meanspti.int
'
' ' = >

[skipbraket natation and Interaction
pictura natation]
tfbte 1ft maritain the structure

of the Sahn pictura
g.Hs~H-htt-eimtqje-imt-etde-etde-etde-eto-d.ir )]
: sane
e. ?
samegame)
t Korolev t t,
"
Èil " " " " ""
&
→ dato -
ad -1,1! rtnloitnldtn ! A- al -111:(tifosi i.fi#rtdAtjdt,-f -
NE t-i.fik-itddtnti.it/tHH-i.rti1t-i.itddtndtatSSS---)--h-h
t
= A-
At the Nthiterationwecanformally write

t ti tn -1
dei ]
È!.ir/dti/dti../dtn1t-Iti1t-+Ad...1t,=(tn1dAn1Htnl
""
>
alti -
A- osi +
M
>
-
- M - M
t ti tn -1
→
( i + È.ir/dti/tti;!dtn1t-iti1t-i.itd...1t-itnl)oi-M--Ki- È ;)
- M - M
A- l"
☆-
Selim ☆ with t , > t > . . .
>
tu → interaction operators are ordered intime
t.sn ,
How we would like to more the wpperboundofalltheintegrationstothesameti.net

fweobthat we nobngerhaveonlytheordered product
'
,
but ,
we introduce also all the Otter
Configuration of the product (see check)

alibi An
]
"
if t > t, > . > tn

fdef
. .
nfields-ltani-idnl-fos.ch
,
:-/
ordering on . .
-
An if ta > ti >
-
. -
> tu
(
etc etc
d d
loss :& becanseofthen possible permntation )

as
È .hn?/dtn/dti-i/dtnTMtitii;1titni)
!
ED 5- :
→ → -
n
(Natation ltactuallgmeanslt.IE )
:
i
check-list to understand what just happened /
ta ta [tritata] ta t ti
1- i
dtfds-ntiti.lt/sD=/dt//1titMtrsidstf1trsi1trtids)-tntn
/
tre tre
↳
resionwhywehadn
'
( ta
ta t ta ta
ta s ta s
t
=/dtldsltitntr.it/dt/ds1tisMtrH--Idt/ds1titi1tisit/ds/dt1trsHtrti=Tfdt/ dsltittltrsi
t.tn ti t ↑ " ti tn tn ↑ t.tn
s - SM ⑤ tdredummy indios]
miele:
"
t
;
t t
g.
rtldt) È È extra di cui )
""
È
"
Iet T =
dti dtn -110141 pani
"
.
. .
(capisco non
. il fine
as
→ s =
1- ( e-
i!! " ±
)
'"
= 1- ( e- HHH =p
i
s (è # ↳ Dyson
Formula
↑
[using
vite in amore avaria ntway
] FH ; ±
-
↳ = -
SI ✗ I± ]
It ± =/DH Ill derivativa Theory like ours
[ ii.
non
e . no derivativa
of $ in £ )
]
We know that Le # YAN where 4 are

fields in the Interaction pictura →
free fields
,
↳ veci
pe for transition amplitude
put L, in Dyson formula → sandwich s between imitial and final free States
transition ampl of T( e
'
I
"
→ .
=
expansion
È / firstordertfi.cl/L=t-ieiDL-iL-+t.-.l "
prob
" "
(i -
sfl ~
Isg -1 ,
=
kfl SI DI
Bonciani says amplitude /
( ma non mi fido
)
~ termi t ferm 2 t ferm } t . . .
each Term has a factor -
TÈ ,
= a =
% , respect the
previo usone =D l' 12 ~
powers of a
e.
g. cross sect ion → o ≈ 9 + ✗
a tono
( where %, 9, G
.
. .
~ sane order 0M ) )
( ~
bulk 1- 1% 1- 0.01% 1- . "
Ethan }
spoiler (of RED 11 :
Series Seems to
converge very rapidi
but it doesn't
converge
at all
, ]
Non etheless g- 2 difference be
tween actual
=
giro magnetico manent has been Measure
d
,
agreement up to the 12ᵗʰ digit respect the theoretical analytical (4ᵗʰ order) prediction
Anticipations of what we with seem in the next lectures :
When we more
from KASI il to the
"
expansion , you
have to compute terms v41 il IIII¥11 is
How can we Complete such a

Object ? → Wick Theorem
Wick theorem Us the T ordered product of a certa in number of Operators in Terms of

gives
-
normal
ordering of the sama product t a certa in number of contract ions
(contract ions =
propagato rs)
↳ At the end you

have to write down
your amputation of Isp il
"
at which over or der
of a
you
want
and you data in just Integral of Products of propagators
s
Pro party ( needed
•
soft to show unitarityandinrarianaeofs )

f- 3
rete !! ( eff " ) te !!

1- (exp ) behave> like
""
) = 1-
" ""
) with f. ≤ tè ! → anusualexpaxntial
Pref [ Esiti :]
:
n
TIÈ! HH Suds: ! .dz Tasi

-
t}
"
t}
. . .
orsù ! ( l'È !! /dsi / l'È /i://sn-ras.si
. .
. .
orsù
ÈM!:)
n -
K times K Times
ts t th
È / dsn / dei / ÈÉK
}
h!
Troisi ) Ogni /
"
si
"
=
(n K )! K! =
. . .
✗ ta tu ti
È.lk/T(HdtatD ( Edt orti)

""
"
↳
= -
1-
tz
Tre !!
.HN/=?Ei-n:ITTÌÉÌÉI
TI!?oa-HtITTÈÌIH
--i--E??.. i-n
""
) -
TIÈ .fi :(Io

III :( r.la
" "
"
-
:( I.
" " " "
b
-
-
=
t2 tto K»
Irene ]
=
IE
" a- K
^
, :*:
a
" -
"
b
" ±
FÉI ! ) / È È:/
. .
=
èeb (e !È '" "
) 1- (effetti )
↑
( n :o) ) (n = 2)
£ È Ann
( net n = as
= Ho + (dnotdnn ) + (daotdan - '

daa ) t (dont dass t - - '
+
dass) =
has Kio
(K :o) =
1)
K =L
(dootdnot it
dass ) tfdntdutds.pt ) (an dont das t dasz)
'
+
1- don t
.
t
"
t
-
"
=
-
. . .
=
E I
=
ÌÌ
• as
=
E -2dm
K:O Nik
Pro party 1 : s is unita
ry
•
tu t2
tg
vita , ti / =
1- e- (
i
! ?" ") = Tfèi ! ? "
dt
) . . .
1- ( e-if.it Ht ) N -
> a
>
↑
È /ti tg ),
in
pieas-stg-ti-Nd-s.tt .
.
-
-
ti fa . . -
<
tu tg and
=
use ☒ ]
] two by twa and recsmpose
using
☒ ]
lim e- io / 1-Nist iok-N.int io /that [ malt
e- e-
\
.
> . . .
il → a
"" ↓ ^
/ d-
lim io "" 'st
è iok-N.int èioit
Utltg
' ,
ti )
. . .
,
=
e
"
Game gaine}
=D
sending tg -
ti → o i Sts =
1 → unita
ry ☐
( tg ,
ti → ± as )
Prosperity 2 : s is Lorentz in variant ( extra )
s = 1- ( è Ifttt ±
) 1- ( ci
/"✗ %-) → d'× Le ,
ore in variant s is invarianti? ?)
±
=
-
↳ = -
/d' ✗ 1
, ] -
-
-
-
.
-
-
- -
How we nerd a new tool to understand how to calcolate the Tor der of a certa in
number
of Operators sandwich ed between ti > and if > ( i. e .
Sgi )
Wick 's Theorem
through master formula that orderbyorobr of the

It can be generated that waht to sandwich
a
gives
us
T orde red operator we : Tutti ti) It ± (tn )

- -
.
mutiny1" y
Master formula ( function
con
:
1- (e-
/d' sai # 1)
i ✗ ✗ i/d'✗ jason
! e-
Il /dxdy ; in jin Tdi È dinto>
bere
; ai =
faine tion
= : e- Qin =
field
We will prove it for ÌÌosonic scala field , but r it exactly the

is sama also
for bosoni a rector field
Then is a
formula also for the Dirac field but it ,
is more
complicated .
In this case we have to remember
that if we swap two fields we
got a minus
sigh
GI
:
loft side
right side
:
:
Tor der
normal
of the fields Corder by voted
ordering somèthihg that has
.
of a correlato r
a double integration ( ordertw
)
How to use : expand bath sides and recallat the integral derby or arden
( Prof in the next lesson )

LEZIONE 14 16/12/2021
proof-lwicr.is/-heorem ) inthiscase
!YÉ↓ÀÈÈàÉÈÈ→EAàN
camminare .
"" ""
↑
AAAE.at?jqpqg
^ ^ ^ n
= [ since A - art) ,
B- orti )
fcutitiitslin
Lpiecesst
N
)
= et
+
(
BEL [ AIB ] ↑
(a- free field )
↓
HANNITY io%ff-lf.HN#tr
me
-
applied to Orte ) dita)

② applicato
protettorato.jp?AfAtkkFYADiteratiramente a tutti
È:* !.IE/o!!;heterm
[alti ) ,
ott;D with ti > ti
sei ire I
nefi ;]
> i
outside the commutatori

[ incethey commuta )
①
↓
ricreati " distraction

,
T da
(÷:*::::b
-
• =
creation → eeft
dHHAkYHMÉàn→AoEgÈ
↳
•
MANHATTAN
= .
»= ,
> =
↑
commntàbroffreefields] "
[
" "" "" "" "
is a < number
E]
" ' '
→ =
<al 107 = =D +
↓
=
1 .
MENAHEM
- -
- -
- - - - -
- - - - - - - . .
- - - -
HOwtonsewi
define /
cr-thormi=/h.at
's : e ;D > d'✗ jrxlvy
* jà » =) / d'xD! jxi ; in ☒ T# di" ) io >
Sides
Let's expandboth of Wick 's the orem :
How we can
qual orderbyorderthe the left band
e side and the
right had side ,
insider to
got a relation between Tordered product of the field and the object on the
right hard side
of the equation ,
i. e .
Ne
get away to Compute the Tordered product of no?) fields
the per farbed part of the scattering
•
athorder in
j : 1=1 → it re
presents nn matrix
•
Ast ordering : TK;D > ) = :< io > : → / d' ✗
jus Troia)
=
/ tk; in :& ×
) : →
THl=
•
2- nd ordering : TK; $5 ) = :<; di : + KM2 » →
→ HHH jaijm-HKHD-HKHI.in ; in :# AH : + SHH! #just# QADI » →
→ TIANYA.eioixioh.it/ol-lorxionlIoT- → this is the arden

the Mast
we will
- Use
= contract in
[ BI : since the Tordered product is symmetric , Then also the

must be Symmetric at all Orders
right Land side
]
•
3- rd
ordering : ( Natation : di me ans dixit )
"& Adsl = : Ada di: tordero.ordersto.ro/er,.ordera-thispartmust be Symmetric

wemustsymmetrizets.IT ↳ Hilo; ) lo >
EILEEN m ? ??
C ? ? ?)
=
:$ da $} : , + :& :<altro, g) lo> + all d-her permuta tion
ordering
]
4- th -013s :
[
•
: sane
game -
di Mone contractin
>
Aids $, →
per
Term
✓
Thiokol} dal = : Ada &, da : t order 2 ardeva + ardere order }

( qq.hu → ancor tuo contr
. .
.
mi w per terra
=
:& A. $, ok : t :& ok :<oltra Alla
,
+
per mutationst } terms with 1 contract Ion
} terms with 2 contract ions
t tolta Allo> <01 Tradito> + per mutation
•
n -
th order ( extra
,
ma utile )
NI :
principle , what have alone field do the
In we is
strictly rabid for a bosoni scala r .
Ho Wever ,
we can
sane procedure for a Dirac field ing aware

,
be that in this case :
longer usual function ii.

ing ) but it is anti com
"
ut
Mutiny
"
•
jin is no an e comm
,
.
• the field s are anti com Mutiny

After compilations that are a bit more complicated what we got is , very
similan to what we
got
for a bosoni field however when you perform permutation of the field you have to add
e
,
a minus
sigh
for each permutation ( 5¥ ¥7 PEI ±)
"
( extra)
SCATTERING MATRIX IN QED fa : it is written in Terms
offree
completed in the sane point
fields]
µ
×
We wautto evacuate 5=-1 ( e-

i #" "in¥ '
) where 1tinta = -
Lint in =
+e Yai AHN
On top of that ,
we have already seem that when you quanti the Theory (d- the level of free fields)
ze
the Hamilton Ian has to be put in normal

ordering in such away that the vacuum energy is zero
↳ we Will usa 1tinta = -
Lint in =
+ :c Yai AHN :
After the expansion Wick 's theorem ) what you have to evacuate is the
of S (
using ,
T -
orde red product
of the normal ardere d product of fields in the sane point with fields in ather points ,
de
pending on which is the arden the expansion at which you want to stop
of
T -
ordered product of normal orde red fields
→ we don't sunt con tractions of fields in the sa me point

"" :# 4 :)
matrix weobtain 5=-1 / e-
i
Putting It ! e, in the
scattering
•
zero -
thorder : no
scattering
4++4
'
il =
•
Firstorder = E-+ E
A = # +At
S' "
= -
ie /I' Tl E#Hai :)
✗ : = -
ie /Ix : E#Has :
↓
= -
ie /d' ✗ (4-
+
+ E) Att# Hetty -1 =
↑
[ fields → 3ʳᵈ order expansion of Wick 's theorem ,
the contract ions
,
butremoving
since
field are in the sane
point × ]
|
annihilation e- ip
×
Remembev : positive energy part of the field
" "
t → i. e .
.
"
"" " "
"
" ""
"
-
→
" " "° " °"
% "
"
"
(µ >
re
:
:
vi annihilates
ut anni hilates
e-
è
,
vi
vi
create è
create e-
¥
,
A' annihilator * create 8
-
:
,
= -
ie /d' f✗ : E # si :
'
+ : È A -4 '
-
: t ' "
} ( Total : 8 terms )
sandwich between
appropriate ti and If ) , such that HIS
"'
How we have to take the > li > to
Example :
consideri the Term : È# ☒ in :( i. e .

ann .
È cr .
t
,
cr . é) → ti > =/ è> , if> = lett>
,
'
How can
you visualize tetri : È# ☒ in :| è > ?
<
µ ≤
è È è
( >
time
)
We can da the for each of the terms

sane 8
,
we data in
differenti Configuration of the sama object
vertex that involve
→ sama
differenti partite s ,
e.
g
:
e
.
etc etc
è '
& si
ninr
mi
•u n
turnà
È
>
>
> •
e- è .
è
-
e-
) (thennihilate
create > all all
( : 4- EH :| ( serie ) )
+
( the part .
in ×
part . in ×
How we want evacuate the sandwich between an on shell initial state and on shell final state
i. e transition amplitude from a l state to and her
final physica e state
.
a
physica
These 8 terms are the building blocks of what we Will see
,
but ( at the manent atthis
,
orderl
they are not physica
In fact we would like to have Somethin g that con Serres the total momentum
,
\ .
'
e.
g. : È A- 4- :
<
µ <
+
è e
È
'
) ti > / et >
p ma
Shell states
= → =
1) on means
| y> = ièr > →
È "
'
"" =
2) Momentum Conservation : /
e"
Pil
→ e
tipa ) +
Kp )
infinto
,
t 2 →
2ps Pi B
,
=
Pat P }
true on by
→
pa p}
.
= o →
mp; = o →
for pj
-
. o i. e when photon has a
vanishing momentum
1ˢᵗ orders matrix elements ( o ne t.tw s object ) are not on shell
=D In order to make possibility is to relax

things of the two costraints
work
,
ohe ohe
↳ relax 1 longer shell partidos G. g. photon

: no virtual photon
on piu )
to) → : irtuae
↳ this is possible in particular at the second der 2 vertice and contract or : s 1 ios
(
è
]
n -
on shell
e
I " shell / virtuali
off
µ↑
et
• vertex i. e . Se i. e .
conservation of momentum
ÉTÉ
et
↳ In Orden to have physical processos we have to more to the

following order
{
Été
}
OBS : look
ing
at e-
> ,
we can interpretit as the
scattering of e- on an external field
& " "
Plea " " de "
'
infinity heavy field

7
nucleus Coulomb
S
exchanging
e-
☒ :
§ (this pro ass →

Rutherford formula in the classical limiti
•
Second-team
:ÉÈÉÉ annéeil
in ✗
2
s' " = K¥1 / In Ix , TI : .

=
: all the fields : + contract ions =
[Remember cannot contract in the point ( i. burch

]
:
you sama e Sanne
of fields in ✗^
]
.
{
ohly contract ionbetween the two bundes
: FINIANI 4h11 : 4- ( ✗a)And 4h1
- - - - - -
lega e
illegali
.
!. . . . . . . .
¥;; ;!! !!!!!! ! /

= .am#nmnn- ""*"" " "" "
.
Entrée + terms with 2 contract ionst } " " " ""=
*: 2 disconnected vertice in ✗s and ✗a l not physica l)

0 : Fini Anni 4h11 4- KIAN 4h21 ,
Fin) Anti-HIV Hal ,
4- ÀÈÉÉÈ
a : Fini ALEENA KINKI FÈLIX ,
. 1
, ELÉNI Hai
☐ : Fin) Anni 4 ÉTÉ )Akal 4hr1

-_
Remenber :
for each Term you have field field field Term have
differenti options
+
for each
-
= + → we
e .
gi Fini) #✗il 4hr1 À ( X2)#( ✗al 4 Hal

mi
↳ ed -114 HAWAII D= ISF ( ✗
n
-
X2)
E. È
in →
Compton scattering
% 7
?
,
When you Wand to evacuate the amplitude , you have to take into account scattering
all the processo that girl me certa in initio and final States .
For example ,
a not her option is : (controlla i colori )
infuocati e
'
e
-
> . ,
e
Next more :
into the Particle Will have certa in Momentum and

noviny p Space
-
,
a
energy
(since free parti des are
eigenstates of Momentum )
e. :
g
TÈ aprirà
l'
Ip,
è(
Pn)
OBI :
shell 8
more contract isns =D mare
propagato rs
post
e.
3 . Fini # LÉLIA 41kt > •
MIT . >
è" ✗a e-
↳
off shell è
Nate : this object is

part of what we discussed Èloud "
of virtual
particle ) i. e .
quantum corrections
This doesn't enter at the level we are discuss

object ing ,
but enter
,
for instance ,
in the renormalization of the electron 's external state
→ e- not a classica point like pontile, but it interacts with the

is -
fields and creato s

Virtual States , reabsorb then and so on
d- her example :
i
Ffg;
' " "
easing
the order You see more objects that pop up
and reabsorbed
>
e- Xn
•
e
'
X, è
>
get
↓
we approximate it as
'
e
>
Bhabha scattering. Two-contraction contributions: electron and positron self-energy, Lezione 35 - 17/12/2021
vacuum polarization of the photon.
Evaluation of the scattering matrix at the second order in QED

Let us go on with the calculation of the second order of the s matrix. Recap: The matrix can be
written in terms of T ordered of an exponential of an integral of interaction hamiltonian/lagrangian.
We have seen how it works at the non physical first order, the physical one is the second order.
Letus recap the physical processes we can have at second order
Since we have operators that are multiplied, but evaluated at the same space time point, we can
erase the normal ordering, provided that we remember that we have to neglect the contraction
among the field. Applying Wick theorem we have a lot of possibilities, the physical ones are either
one or two or three contractions
With two externals photons and fermions you have Compton scattering and pair annihilation and
creation. The contraction of the photonic operator gives us
Therefor you have a photonic propagator and the in the external states you have four fermions.
This states take into account, four example, Møller scattering and Bhabha scattering.
These two objects take in account the lowest order possible. Then you can have additionally
Self-energy Vacuum polarisation
We will not see these last
One-contraction contributions (Fermionic)
Let us consider the case of a contraction lf the Dirac field
1 and 2 are dummy indices, since we are integrating all over

the volume. Therfore the two integrals are the same.
Now this integral can be written in terms of and objects, to see which ones enter in the
process of scattering.
Extra: Remembering that
are not anymore

free fields, they are
interacting
Process with photon and fermion
This matrix element includes all the processes,we have different possibilities of in states and out
states. We want to consider the following scatterings
Compton scattering of an electron
We have to select from the matrix element that give us a sandwich different from zero.
This is basically given by two possibilities.
a. In the positive energy annihilate an electron and the photon, then we have a fermion
propagator that goes to , then in we create an electron and a photon
a. The other possibilitiy is in the positive energy annihilate an electron in and the photon
in , then we have a fermion propagator that goes to , then in we create an electron and
a photon
Hence the amplitude of having Compton scattering is the sum of the two
Compton scattering of an positron

We can consider the same process for the positrons
Pair creation
The two photons are actually in a state indistinguishable between them. What we can do, since we
have and that act on the vacuum, the two operators can indipendently annihilate the same
gamma. So on top of this first diagram a), we can also consider b).
The we can also consider the revers process
Pair annihilation
Møller scattering with electrons (or positrons)

Instead of contracting one Fermionic field, we can contract the photon field and the external fields
are now electron (or positron)
We contract
We can also interchange the two fermionic fields, but in this case you get a minus sign on the
amplitude
We can also interchange the final states
Therefore we have the sum of four objects, but the last two we immidiatley understand that give
us the same contribution as the first two, so it simplifies the on top of the integral.
Bhabba scattering
This is at the bases of what was done at LEP, the collider at CERN.
Also in this case we have different objects that contribute to the same initial and final state process
a. In we annihilate an electron and a positron with a photon propagator with the creation in
b. The other possibility is to annihilate and create a positron in , while in we annihilate and
create an electron
We explain
later why it has Fermionic
a revers arrow arrow
Annihilation
vertex Usually drawn as
a. The first one is a s-channel diagram:

All the energy goes in the photon and then
it gives us back the pair;
b. The second is a t-channel diagram:
The momentum is transferred between the two
it is the square of the center of mass energy
it gives us the transferred momentum, so how ??? Min 34
We have two additional possibilities

c. Like the first one but with the vertex reversed. The integral gives us the same contribution as a)
d. Like the second but with the vertex reversed. The integral gives us the same contribution as b)
Since we just have to swap and to recover the first two diagrams from the last two (basta
sbrogliare i nodi per vederlo), we can erase the from the computation of the integral
However they are subtracted because there is an intrinsic minus sign in b) with respect to a). It
comes from the fact that now we have to normal order , in particular we need to swap the teo
after the Feynman propagator. Therefore, due to statistics, in the calculation of the amplitud we
have to take the difference because it a negative coefficient
Remember that when we speak about the normal order of these object we have to take into
account two objects:
1. the spinor component
2. the annihilation/creation operator component
But we normal order just the operators, not the spinor which gives us the correct Lorentz
transformation. The spinor structure has to remain the same, hence do not write thing like
This is not a four vector, it is not correct from a point of view of the Lorentz structure.
Lezione 36 - 21/12/2021
S matrix in momentum space
We want to show the final uses; we move to the space, since it is where they are usually used . We
use foruier transformation to do so
Fermionic propagator with
Bosonic propagator with
The ones above are the ingradients that concerned the propagators (propagation of particles). We
can also remember the fields in nromal modes
These above are all the ingredients that we need to move from the intergration in of
our ???-dimensional ??? Matrix, to the same rules in . We have to understand how these fields act,
for instance, on our initial state. Let us take the annihilation of a certain state given by an electron
of momentum
Just for convenience, instead of using the normalization factor of an infinite volume, we
moved to a quantization in a finite volume: .
Actually, we will use it as an excuse: we will use the normalization in a finite volume, but then we
will continue to write down 's as Dirac's ones. In fact, if we quantize in a fine volume, therefore
the is quantized, therefore we should replace . But the thing is that we
normalize in the volume and in the end our observable will be writte in the entire space, so the
volume and the time will go to infinity again. It is a sort of internal regularization in order to see
that all the normalization factors go in the right way. When we will compute cross sections all these
volumes will go out.
The interaction vertex for particles

Now that we have the building blocks, let us see what happens to the vertex, even if we know that
this is non-physical. Just to understand how the operators act, then we will move to a physical
process. Let us take into account this non-physical process
We want to write down the sandwich of the first order expansion of the matrix with the initial
and final state
Destroys an electron Destroys an electron

Destroys a photon
Conservation of the
momentum on the Transition matrix
vertex element
This gives us the first Feynamn rule It follows the fermionic arrow inverted
Incoming particle
Outgoing particle
This depends on the

Outgoing photon polarization we
choose
For example, it gets a complex conjugation if we choose a ciruclar polarization . Finally
Interaction vertex
An additional rule, we will see it later, is the following: in the end, the transition matrix element
Is written from left to right. Looking at the diagram we see that the particle flows as the arrow we
draw, this give us an additional rule: for particles, we have to go against the arrow. Therefore first
the final state, then the interaction vertex and last the initial state.
Second order process

Now let us move to a physical scattering: The compton scattering that we have already seen
We already discussed that we have two second order matrxi elements, and so diagrams. Since we
are going to write down everything in -space, so we have to manifestly write down which is the so-
called rooting of our Feyman diagrams: we have to asign the momenta of the initial and final
integrated particles. We do not usually put the arrown on the photon.
Our second order transition amplitude will be
Let us write the transition amplitude of the first Feynman diagram Here is irrelevant the order because the
bosons and the fermions commute
Complex conj
For circular
polarit
with
This is the correct way: The "slash" should not stay in the
denominator
We have to write the matrix element for the diagram b) and then add them up. We do not go
through all the integrations again, but we write it down directly (the external things are the same)
This is the correct way: The "slash" should not stay in the
denominator
Summing them up
The interaction vertex for antiparticles

Let us see what happens when we use positrons. In order to do that, we consider the same vertex
we considered for the electron, but with positron
We are just using these arrows to

indicate who is the initial and the final
state. In the end we will put the yellows
This order the correct one, but ones usually write a

shortcut:
It is not correct because the normal ordering is of the

operators, not the spinors
The reading oroder of

follows the fermionc arrow
order (the black ones)
In order to use the same rule as with the electron: the reading order is against the arrow, we invert
the arrows for the antiparticles and use the ones that in the picture are yellow
Therefore the additional Feynman rules are
Fermionic propagator (we already knew it)
Incoming antiparticle
Outgoing antiparticle
Two contractions diagram

Electron self energy
Now let us see other rules that we will not use at the moment. They are needed for higher order
studies. Let us consider the electron self-energy: electron emitting and absorbing a photon
We can choose + or +,
depending if we are
considering a positron
or an electron
This is the matrix element that comes with two contractions of the Wick's theorem (we are still at
the second order) This can be exchanged because it
does not carry any Dirac's index
So the additional Feynman rule is that, whenever we have a loop (a virtual emission ans absorpion),
we have to integrate in the loop momentum. Therefor the Feynman rule for the photon propagator
is
Photon propagator
Vacuum polarization bubble

The last rule comes from the other diagram with two contractions: the vaccum polarization bubble.
This is the one where we have to contract
We can choose + or +, depending if we
are considering a positron or an
electron
Electron self energy Vacuum polarization bubble
In order to write down the T-ordered product , we have to readjust the fermionic operators. If
we move on the left, we get a minus sign (we do an odd number of permutations of Fermionic
fields). This object means this
So, for this object, just because of the counting of the anticommutation that we have to do
exchanging the fermionic fields, we have an additional in the integral. We have a look integral
(we will have to integrate over the momentum of the split that flows in the circle) and moreover we
will have to add an additional
Every time we have a fermionic loop, there is an additional -1 in front of the integral
Moreover we see that we do not have any Dirac indeces outside the loop, this means that we are
tracing the product of Dirac gamma matrices that we have. If we write down the matrix element
Lezione 37 - 21/12/2021
The production Cross Section

We have seen how to write down our Feynman's rules for the matrix elements of the transition
amplitude and how to move to the probability. So what we have is
Transition amplitude, it
contains information about the
interaction
First order
The transition amplitude can be written using perturbation theory, therefore in our case it well
be a series in when we take the module square. The meseaurble quantity will be
We have to define what we mean with the module square of the and we are doing so by moving
to a representation of the delta
Now let us focus on the integration of time
Let us see what is this object at a finite . Or better, since we are interested in his physical meaning,
its module squared
The area of this

object (its integral) is
We get the same thing if we do the same integration in the volume. In the end
Now we define the
Transition rate
In this way we collect an

overall external normalization
factor for all the particles
This is actually the transition probability density per unit time (a rate) to go from a certain initial
state to an exact final state . However usually we are not able to get the exact , but we count
the final states in a certain interval, which can be a small as possible, but not zero. Hence we have
to take into account the possibility to have a transition to a final state included between
, for instance. For an experimental point of view this is taking into account the error or from a
theoretical one this is the case when you have final states that are almost degenerate.
We are going to sum over all the possible states that enter an interval . How many are these
states? Since we quantized in the box, we know how to move .
We know that the momentum is quantized via
So the object we use/predict is
Scattering cross-section
There is another point: How is the experiment set up? Let us say we have a beam with a certain
surface made of a certain number of object, possibly all prepared with the same initial momentum.
We also have a target with a certain density of scattering centres. After the scatter we will have our
final states and a detector to count them.
: # of incoming particles per unit time and surface

: # of incoming particles in
: # of scattered part.s per unit and unit target*
: # of scattered particles in per unit target*
*in the sense of: "per unit scattering centre in the target"
The cross section is defined by
So is the flux of incoming particles

"relative" because we considered the target at rest
Density of incoming particles
If we put all this together, we have a definition for our differential cross section (differential
because we are not considering all the possible final states)
We now consider one scattering at a time, the beam is a many replica of this scatter. This mean that
Considering the product of two particles (bullet and fix target particle) in particles in the final state
Now it depends on what we want to measure. For example, usually we are not able to measure all
the directions in the sphere: the geometry of the experiment (the costrain in the integration)
must be taken into account.
For the moment, let us look for the total cross section. The object is Lorentz invariant, but to
point out so, we need to write it in manifestly Lorentz invariant form. First we explicitly write
Let us put ourselves in a particular frame in which the particle two is at rest
All the other elements in the differential cross section are manifestly invariant. Scalar product of two
covariant vector:
manifestly invariant
Calculation of the cross section for the scattering process
I) We take the formula for we have just found

Let us consider this particular scattering. Let us call the initial momenta and the final ones
. In this case we must write
Let us concentrate in the module square of the matrix element of the transition amplitude. We
know that in our world the electron and the muon are the same thing except for the mass
This will be taken in account later in order not to do complicated integrals. The scattering we are
considering involves two different families (there is a third one, the )
Our initial and final states are
We have to find in the second order of the matrix element in a perturbative expansion of the
matrix (the 2nd order is the first with a physical sense), the corresponding operator that has a
different from zero expectation value between
In our case we have
We have to use the Wick's theorem in order to compute the time order product of this object in
terms of normal ordering and contraction. So, if we expand it, we get: the product of the fields of
the electron in the final and initial state, and since involves only electrons it goes in another process:
for example the Bhabha or Møller scattering (the same things occur with muons). Therefore the
chance to have a matrix element different from zero come from the intermediate product.
Removing the process that are not in our computation we get the sum of two objects
Only one possible contraction
If we look at how this two objects, it can be shown using the Feynman rules, they corresponds to
Since the second one can be obtained by the first one exchanges and , in the end the
contribution to this scattering is two times what comes out from the first matrix element
In the end what we are going to calculate is the following
II) We write the elements from the Feynman rules
Lorentz indices
For the conservation
Given the Feynman diagram, we write the transition amplitude using the Feynman rules we
extracted this morning, in the previous lesson
We omit the polarization
If we want to put the This is another current

Dirac's indices: The propagator
Row x matrix x column
Now we want to take the modulus square of this object, multiplying it for its dagger (nota )
We changed the index otherwise we would have the same index

when multiplied with
Therefore
We have a trace, hence we can use the cyclicity of the trace, but what we have is something with a
certain definite polarization. We look also at polarized scattering, but for the moment we are going
to treat this scattering in the unpolarized version of it: we do not prepare our initial state with a
certain polarization and we do not look at particular polarized state in the final states.
III) Polarizations and traces
To calculate the unpolarized cross section, quantum mechanically we sum over the initial and final
spins and then we divide by four, since we have four initial states that can possibly go in the same
final state.
We know what is this object and how it can be written in terms

of slash
These s indicate a muon
Read: traces of gamma matrices,

already studied
The two traces will be expressed in form of a tensor
Using
In the end, doing all the contraction (even if we wrote all the indices contravariant)
IV) We consider the case
The module square of the amplitude is written in terms of scalar product, thus is a scalar and
therefor is a Lorentz invariant, as it should. In order to relate the scalar product to actual variables in
our geometrical description of the scattering, we have to evaluate the scalar products in terms of
degrees of freedom, and we can do it in the frame we prefer: the centre of mass.
E^
Conservation of energy
Now we use this four vectors to evaluate in this frame the scalar products
V) We put the products into
A useful factor that appears in the cross section is
VI) We approximate
At this point everything is correct and set up and we can an integral that is not easy to calculate. In
order to see how to really arrive to the end, we neglect the electron mass terms with respect to the
muon mass terms
Regarding the flux term
In our case
Finally Now we use one of the deltas
Since it is symmetric in the azimuthal angle (it has cylindrical symmetry), we can write down the
differential cross section with respect to
We would like to use the delta, so we change variable and we write in terms of
with
VII) We consider the high energy limit:
From the expression , in the high energy limit, using , we get
If we integrate to find the total cross section
We see that depends on the energy of the incoming particle. For instance if we have a beam of one
hundred Gev energy
Notes on
RELATIVISTIC
QUANTUM MECHANICS
Roberto Bonciani1
00185 Roma
Indice
I Canonical Quantization III

1 THE PROCESS e+ + e− → µ+ + µ− IV
1.1 Modulus Squared of the Transition Amplitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV
1.1.1 Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VI
1.2 Flux Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VIII
1.3 Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VIII
II
Parte I
Canonical Quantization
III
Capitolo 1
THE PROCESS e+ + e− → µ+ + µ−
In this chapter we consider the process e+ + e− → µ+ + µ− . The cross section is

1 d3 p3 d3 p4 2
dσe+ e− →µ+ µ− = (2π)4 δ 4 (p1 + p2 − p3 − p4 ) p (2m e )2
(2m µ )2
|M| ,
4 (p1 · p2 )2 − m21 m22 (2π)3 2E3 (2π)3 2E4
(1.1)
where me and mµ are the masses of the electron and of the muon respectively. Let us now concentrate
on the different pieces of the calculation starting from the modulus squared of the transition amplitude.
1.1 Modulus Squared of the Transition Amplitude

In the Standard Model there are three families of leptons; in this section we consider only the first two:
electron and muons. They differ by the mass: me ∼ 0.5 MeV, mµ ∼ 105 MeV, but the have the same
electric charge.
The interaction Lagrangian density is

Lint = −e : ψ̄e 6 Aψe + ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ : (1.2)
and therefore, in order to have a matrix element different from zero between the initial state |e+ e− i and
the final state |µ+ µ− i we have to consider the second order expansion of the Wick’s theorem:
(−i e)2
T : ψ̄e 6 Aψe + ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X1 :: ψ̄e 6 Aψe + ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X2 : =
2
(−i e)2 n
T : ψ̄e 6 Aψe X1 :: ψ̄e 6 Aψe X2 : + T : ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X1 :: ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X2 :
2 o

+T : ψ̄e 6 Aψe X1 :: ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X2 : + T : ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X1 :: ψ̄e 6 Aψe X2 : . (1.3)
Operators belonging to different fields cannot be contracted. Therefore, the only possibility consists in
contracting the photon field. The four possibilities above have matrix elements different from zero for
different initial and final states. The first and the second terms in Eq. (1.3) represent electron-positron
to electron-positron and muon-anti muon to muon-anti muon scattering processes, respectively. We are
interested, instead, in electron-positron to muon-anti muon scattering, that is represented by the third
and fourth terms of Eq. (1.3). Therefore, considering as initial state |e+ e− i and final state |µ+ µ− i, these
two terms give the following contributions:
(−i e)2 n o
T : ψ̄e 6 Aψe X1 :: ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X2 : + T : ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X1 :: ψ̄e 6 Aψe X2 : =
2
2
(−i e)
: ψ̄e 6 Aψe X1 : : ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X2 : + : ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X1 : : ψ̄e 6 Aψe X2 : . (1.4)
2
We have to select, in the first contribution, the annihilation of an electron and a positron in X1 and
the creation of a muon and an anti-muon in X2 , while, in the second contribution, the annihilation
IV
of an electron and a positron in X2 and the creation of a muon and an anti-muon in X1 . These two
contributions can be represented by the following Feynman diagrams (in X space):
e− µ− e− µ−
X1 X2
X1 X2
e+ µ+ e+ µ+
When we integrate in X1 and X2 , if we exchange X1 with X2 in the second term, we find the same
contribution coming from the first term, that therefore has to be considered twice:
Z
S (2) = (−ie)2 d4 X1 d4 X2 : ψ̄e 6 Aψe X1 : : ψ̄µ 6 Aψµ X2 : .

(1.5)
Moving to momentum space we have then to consider the following Feynman diagram:
e− p1 p3 µ−
p1 + p2
e+ p2 p4 µ+
The matrix element M and its complex conjugated are given by

−iη µν
M = ū(p3 , n3 )i −ieγν ij
v(p4 , n4 )j 2
v̄(p2 , n2 )k −ieγµ kl u(p1 , n1 )l , (1.6)
(p1 + p2 )
1
= ie2 ū3i γνij v4j v̄2 γ νkl u1l , (1.7)
(p1 + p2 )2 k
1
M∗ = −ie2 v̄4j γρji u3i ū1 γ ρlk v2k . (1.8)
(p1 + p2 )2 l
Finally,
2 e4
ū3i γνij v4j v̄4j γρji u3i v̄2k γ νkl u1l ū1l γ ρlk v2k ,

|M| = (1.9)
(p1 + p2 )4
which is a trace on the Dirac indices, and therefore can be written also in the following way (for the
cyclicity properties of the trace):
e4
|M|2 = tr u3 ū3 γν v4 v̄4 γρ tr v2 v̄2 γ ν u1 ū1 γ ρ .

(1.10)
(p1 + p2 )4
Very often we are interested to unpolarized cross sections. Since we admit an undefined spin state
of the final state, quantum mechanically we have to sum over the final state spins. We can reach the
same final state both with a certain spin configuration of particle 1 and of particle 2. Therefore, we can
sum over the initial state provided that we devide by the different spin states available. In the case of
two fermions in the initial state, we have to consider 2 states for each particle and therefore a 1/4 factor
overall:
2 1X 2
|M| =⇒ |M| ; (1.11)
4 ′ n,n
this means: “sum over the final state spins” and “average over the initial state spins”.
V
Therefore, we find:
1X 2 e4 X
tr u3 ū3 γν v4 v̄4 γρ tr v2 v̄2 γ ν u1 ū1 γ ρ ,

|M| = 4
(1.12)
4 4(p1 + p2 )
n,n
′ ′ n,n
e4 X X X X
v2 v̄2 )γ ν ( u1 ū1 )γ ρ , (1.13)

= 4
tr ( u3 ū3 )γν ( v4 v̄4 )γρ tr (
4(p1 + p2 ) n3 n4 n2 n1
4
e 6 p 3 + mµ 6 p 4 − mµ 6 p 2 − me ν 6 p 1 + me ρ
= 4
tr γν γρ tr γ γ , (1.14)
4(p1 + p2 ) 2mµ 2mµ 2me 2me
e4
tr (6 p1 +me )γ ρ (6 p2 −me )γ ν , (1.15)

= tr (6 p 3 +m µ )γ ν (6 p 4 −m µ )γ ρ
64m2e m2µ (p1 + p2 )4
where we used the sums over polarizations

X 6p+m
u(p, n)ū(p, n) = , (1.16)
n
2m
X 6p−m
v(p, n)v̄(p, n) = (1.17)
n
2m
and the cyclic property of the trace.

Let us evaluate the two traces, remembering that the trace of an odd number of γ matrices is zero.

T r1 = tr (6 p3 + mµ )γν (6 p4 − mµ )γρ = tr 6 p3 γν 6 p4 γρ − m2µ γν γρ , (1.18)
= 4p3ν p4ρ + 4p3ρ p4ν − 4(p3 · p4 )gνρ − 4m2µ gνρ , (1.19)

= tr (6 p1 +me )γ ρ (6 p2 −me )γ ν = ... = 4p1ρ p2ν + 4p1ν p2ρ − 4(p1 · p2 )gνρ − 4m2e gνρ . (1.20)

T r2
Therefore, the product of the two traces is
T r1 T r2 = 16 (p1 · p4 )(p2 · p3 ) + (p1 · p3 )(p2 · p4 ) − (p1 · p2 )(p3 · p4 ) − 16m2e (p3 · p4 )

+16 (p1 · p3 )(p2 · p4 ) + (p1 · p4 )(p2 · p3 ) − (p1 · p2 )(p3 · p4 ) − 16m2e (p3 · p4 )

−16 (p1 · p2 )(p3 · p4 ) + (p1 · p2 )(p3 · p4 ) − 4(p1 · p2 )(p3 · p4 ) + 64m2e (p3 · p4 )

−16m2µ (p1 · p2 ) − 16m2µ (p1 · p2 ) + 64m2µ (p1 · p2 ) + 64m2e m2µ , (1.21)

= 32(p1 · p3 )(p2 · p4 ) + 32(p1 · p4 )(p2 · p3 ) + 32m2e (p3 · p4 ) + 32m2µ (p1 · p2 )
+64m2e m2µ . (1.22)
In total, we have:
1X 2 e4
(p1 · p3 )(p2 · p4 ) + (p1 · p4 )(p2 · p3 ) + m2e (p3 · p4 ) + m2µ (p1 · p2 ) + 2m2e m2µ .

|M| = 2 2 4
4 2me mµ (p1 + p2 )
n,n
′
(1.23)
1.1.1 Kinematics
In order to express the scalar products, we choose a reference system. Since |M|2 is invariant it is
convenient to calculate it in the center of mass (c.m.) frame. In this frame we have the following
situation:
p3
p1 θ p2
p4 VI
where θ is the so-called scattering angle. Therefore, we have:
pν1 = (E1 , p) , pν2 = (E2 , −p) . (1.24)
Since p21 = m2e = p22 , it follows that E1 = E2 = E, then
pν1 = (E, p) , pν2 = (E, −p) (1.25)
and
(p1 + p2 )2 = 4E 2 . (1.26)
Also p3 and p4 are back-to-back and therefore if we call
pν3 = (E3 , p′ ) , pν4 = (E4 , −p′ ) , (1.27)
with p23 = m2µ = p24 , we have to have E4 = E3 . Moreover, since p1 + p2 = p3 + p4 , we also have
p1 + p2 = 2E = p3 + p4 = 2E3 =⇒ E3 = E . (1.28)
Finally
pν3 = (E, p′ ) , pν4 = (E, −p′ ) . (1.29)
The various scalar products can be expressed in terms of E, p, p′ and the scattering angle θ:
p1 · p2 = E 2 + p2 , (1.30)
p3 · p4 = E 2 + p′2 , (1.31)
p1 · p3 = E 2 − p · p′ = E 2 − pp′ cos θ = p2 · p4 , (1.32)
p1 · p4 = E 2 + p · p′ = E 2 + pp′ cos θ = p2 · p3 , (1.33)
(1.34)
therefore we find:
1X 2 e4 2
|M| = 2 2 4
(E − pp′ cos θ)2 + (E 2 + pp′ cos θ)2 + m2e (E 2 + p′2 )
4 2me mµ 16E
n,n′
+m2µ (E 2 + p2 ) + 2m2e m2µ ,

(1.35)
4
e
2E 4 + 2p2 p′2 cos2 θ + (m2e + m2µ )E 2 + m2e p′2 + m2µ p2 + 2m2e m2µ .(1.36)

=
2m2e m2µ 16E 4
1 2
|M| is multiplied by a factor (2me )2 (2mµ )2 and then we have
P
In the cross section, the term 4 n,n′
1X e4 4
(2me )2 (2mµ )2 |M|2 = 2E + 2p2 p′2 cos2 θ + (m2e + m2µ )E 2 + m2e p′2 + m2µ p2 + 2m2e m2µ . (1.37)

4 2E 4
n,n
′
This means that in the cross section we do not have mass terms in the denominator. Since me ≪ mµ
(we also have m2e ≪ E 2 and m2µ ≪ E 2 ), in Eq. (1.37) we can neglect terms proportional to m2e , finding
a simpler formula:
1X e4 4
(2me )2 (2mµ )2 |M|2 ≈ 2E + 2p2 p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ E 2 + m2µ p2

4 2E 4
n,n
′
e4
2(E 4 + E 2 p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ E 2 ) ,

=
2E 4
e4 2
E + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ ,

= 2
(1.38)
E
since for me ∼ 0 we have m2e = 0 = E 2 − p2 and therefore p2 = E 2 .
VII
1.2 Flux Factor
The calc ulation of the flux factor in our case gives the following result:
q p
4 (p1 · p2 )2 − m2e m2µ ≈ 4 (p1 · p2 )2 = 8E 2 . (1.39)
1.3 Cross Section

Finally, merging the various pieces together we find:
1 e4 2 d3 p3 d3 p4
dσ = (2π)4 δ 4 (p1 + p2 − p3 − p4 ) 2 2
E + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ , (1.40)
8E E (2π) 2E3 (2π)3 2E4
3
e4
= δ 4 (p1 + p2 − p3 − p4 )
2
E + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ d3 p3 d3 p4 ,

2 6
(1.41)
128π E
α2
= δ 4 (p1 + p2 − p3 − p4 ) 6 E 2 + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ d3 p3 d3 p4 ,

(1.42)
8E
where we introduced the fine structure constant α = e2 /(4π).
If we use the δ 4 (p1 + p2 − p3 − p4 ) in the d3 p4 integration, we find
α2 2
E + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ d3 p′ ,

dσ = δ(E1 + E2 − E3 − E4 ) 6
(1.43)
8E
α2
= δ 4 (2(E − E ′ ))
2
E + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ d3 p′ ,

(1.44)
8E 6
2
1 α
E 2 + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ d3 p′ .

= δ(E − E ′ ) 6
(1.45)
2 8E
We can express d3 p′ in terms of the solid angle
d3 p′ = p′2 dp′ dΩ(= p′2 dp′ d cos θdφ) (1.46)
and calculate the differential cross section, with respect to the solid angle dΩ
dσ α2
Z
δ(E − E ′ ) E 2 + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ p′2 dp′ .

= 6
(1.47)
dΩ 16E
Since p′2 = E ′2 p − m2µ , we have

dp′ E′ E′
= = . (1.48)
dE ′
q
E ′2 − m2µ p′
Finally,
dσ α2
Z
δ(E − E ′ ) E 2 + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ p′ E ′ dE ′ ,

= (1.49)
dΩ 16E 6
α2
E 2 + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ p′ E ,

= (1.50)
16E 6
α2
p′ 2
E + p′2 cos2 θ + m2µ ,

= (1.51)
16E 4
E
q
where we used the fact that now p′ = E 2 − m2µ .
To find the total cross section we must integrate in dΩ. For simplicity let us consider the ultra-
relativistic limit, E 2 ≫ m2µ . Therefore, in Eq. (1.51) we can neglect the term with m2mu (m2mu ∼ 0 =⇒
p′ = E) getting
dσ α2
1 + cos2 θ .

= 2
(1.52)
dΩ 16E
VIII
Then, we have
α2
Z
1 + cos2 θ dΩ ,

σ = 2
(1.53)
16E
Z 1
α2
1 + cos2 θ d cos θ ,

= 2
2π (1.54)
16E −1
α2 π 1
= = 5.6 · 10−5 2 . (1.55)
3E 2 E
The cross section is now (in natural units) in Energy−2 . If E ∼ 100 GeV, we would obtain
σ = 5.6 · 10−9 GeV−2 . (1.56)
If we want to express the cross section in barn, we have to remember that
1 GeV−2 = 0.389 mbarn . (1.57)
Therefore:
σ = 5.6 · 10−9 GeV−2 = 2.18 · 10−9 mbarn = 2.18 pbarn . (1.58)
IX

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Lecture notes of

Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics (NRQM) Description of a single particle

Idea: same quantization as in the Schr. Eq, (i.e. )

but using the relativistic relation

2) in the free particle solution we find that the energy is .

(instead guarantee a definite positive probability density, see Schr. eq.)

Moreover in the differential equation we have to put the and the

Solution: Dirac equation (1927)

N.B.: • first order derivative probability density ( ) is positive definite

BUT there was still the problem of negative energy states.

• Huge amount of electrons in the Dirac sea are hard to explain.

Solution: Quantum Field Theory

3. Move to the Hamiltonian.

extract the cross section

SPECIAL RELATIVITY & CLASSICAL FIELD THEORY

SPECIAL RELATIVITY AND CLASSICAL FIELD THEORY Pagina 1

With this component is homogeneous

The simultaneity is linked to which inertial frame

Distance in Minkowsky space

A ray is emitted in and reaches after a certain time. Since

In a second inertial frame, we get (since is the same)

So we define the distance in Minkowsky space as

Moving to differentials (or infinitesimals)

We want to show that is the same in every inertial frame.

Experimental fact: Isotropy and homogeneity of space

SPECIAL RELATIVITY AND CLASSICAL FIELD THEORY Pagina 2

This does NOT

is an invariant Euclidean distance

On the other hand, if they happen at the same time

Last, if I can find a frame where

The 4D space is called Minkowski space.

SPECIAL RELATIVITY AND CLASSICAL FIELD THEORY Pagina 3

We can express this in a matrix form

The relations to find and are It is also useful to remember that

SPECIAL RELATIVITY AND CLASSICAL FIELD THEORY Pagina 6

Limit of small velocity

In order to see the behaviour of Lorentz transformations in the

We recover Galileo transformations

Note: we can see the limit as a characterisation of the Newtonian mechanics in

Let’s consider a situation in which a point has a certain

Now let’s assume that and

If we take it is immediate to see that we obtain the relation

Anno Accademico 2020-2021

0.1.1 Vectors and Contravariant Components

v = v i ei , with i = 1, · · · , dim(V) . (1)

σ(v) = σi ki (v) = σi ki (v j ej ) = σi v j ki (ej ) . (13)

ki (ej ) = δji , (14)

ki (v) = ki (v j ej ) = v j ki (ej ) = v i , (16)

w ∈ V → fv (w) = (v, w) ∈ R . (22)

Because of the definition (22), in this case we have

fi = f (ei ) = (v, ei ) = vi . (24)

We call them covariant components of v.

fv (w) = (v, w) = v i (ei , w) = v i wj (ei , ej ) = v i wj gij , (25)

where we introduced the “metric tensor”

vi = gij v j . In practice the metric tensor raises or (28)

vi = (v, ei ) = (v j ej , ei ) = v j (ej , ei ) = gij v j , (29)

vi′ = (v, e′ i ) = (v j ej , Λρi eρ ) = v j Λρi (ej , eρ ) = v j Λρi gjρ = Λρi vρ . (30)

(u, v) = g γδ uγ vδ = (u′ , v′ ) = g ′µν u′µ vν′ (39)