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Speaker |
Vassiliev, Dmitri |
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Coauthors |
Fang, Yan-Long |
| Talk Title |
A non-geometric representation of the Dirac equation in curved spacetime |
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Abstract |
The talk is an attempt at developing a relativistic field theory based on the concepts from the analysis of partial differential equations as opposed to geometric concepts. Consider a formally self-adjoint first order linear differential operator acting on pairs (two-columns) of complex-valued scalar fields over a four-manifold without boundary. We examine the geometric content of such an operator and show that it implicitly contains a Lorentzian metric, Pauli matrices, connection coefficients for spinor fields and an electromagnetic covector potential. This observation allows us to give a simple representation of the massive Dirac equation as a system of four scalar equations involving an arbitrary two-by-two matrix operator as above and its adjugate. The point of the talk is that in order to write down the Dirac equation in the physically meaningful four-dimensional hyperbolic setting one does not need any geometric constructs. All the geometry required is contained in a single analytic object - an abstract formally self-adjoint first order linear differential operator acting on pairs of complex-valued scalar fields. |
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