Talk:Rarita–Schwinger equation

Category
since the Klein-Gordon eqn is also in that category, I changed cat:equations to cat:PDE. If all field equations were classified there, they could even make up a subcategory of their own... &mdash; MFH:Talk 21:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The Gamma matrices convention
In Weinberg's textbook, the gamma matrices are defined such that $$\{\gamma^{\mu},\gamma^{\nu}\} =2\eta^{\mu\nu} $$ and the metric $$ \eta^{\mu\nu}=diag(-1,1,1,1)$$. This might need to be pointed out to avoid confusions.

Wrong mass term in the Lagrangian
The mass term in the Lagrangian will be wrong without the antisymmetric product of two gamma matrices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.122.53.167 (talk) 04:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the comment. Can you provide some reference to the correct Lagrangian? -- þħɥʂıɕıʄʈʝɘɖı 18:01, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I'm being dense here, but does the $$\gamma^{\mu \nu}$$ term in the Lagrangian suppose to signify $$1/2[\gamma^{\mu},\gamma^{\mu}]= 1/2(\gamma^{\mu}\gamma^{\nu} - \gamma^{\nu}\gamma^{\mu})$$? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.193.118.186 (talk) 14:45, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I have updated both the RS equation and the Lagrangian to the correct form; c.f. the already-referenced G. Velo, D. Zwanziger, Phys. Rev. 186, 1337 (1969). Yes, there is an antisymmetric gamma product in the mass term. Yes, $$\gamma^{\mu \nu} = \frac{1}{2}[\gamma^{\mu},\gamma^{\mu}]$$; I have switched this to the more commonly used $$\sigma^{\mu \nu} \equiv \frac{i}{2}\left [ \gamma^\mu, \gamma^\nu \right ]$$. N.B. in the Velo and Zwanziger reference the lack of $$i$$ in the definitions of $$\sigma^{\mu \nu}$$ and $$\gamma^5$$.

I intend to make citations on this page in-line, but I don't have more time at this very moment.

The "in need of attention from an expert" box was added by a bot; what more, if anything, do we want in this page so that we can remove said box?

Calavicci (talk) 00:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I think S. Weinberg's books should give the correct formulaes. --B wik (talk) 18:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

sigma notation
Does the $$\sigma$$ notation in this article correspond to the $$\sigma$$ in the previous post? If so, can someone clarify this in the article itself? 109.153.12.132 (talk) 23:09, 26 May 2011 (UTC)