Internal space-time symmetries of massive and massless particles
- 1 November 1984
- journal article
- Published by American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) in American Journal of Physics
- Vol. 52 (11) , 1037-1043
- https://doi.org/10.1119/1.13784
Abstract
A unified description is given for internal space-time symmetries for massive and massless particles. It is noted that the little groups governing the internal symmetries of massive and massless particles are locally isomorphic to the three-dimensional rotation group or O(3) and the two-dimensional rotation group or E(2), respectively. It is noted also that the E(2) group can be obtained from a large-radius/flat-surface approximation of O(3). This procedure is then shown to be directly applicable to that of obtaining the E(2)-like little group for massless particles from the O(3)-like little group for massive particles in the infinite-momentum/zero-mass limit.Keywords
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