Van der Waerden notation

In theoretical physics, Van der Waerden notation^[1][2] refers to the usage of two-component spinors (Weyl spinors) in four spacetime dimensions. This is standard in twistor theory and supersymmetry. It is named after Bartel Leendert van der Waerden.

Dotted indices[]

Undotted indices (chiral indices)

Spinors with lower undotted indices have a left-handed chirality, and are called chiral indices.

${\displaystyle \Sigma _{\mathrm {left} }={\begin{pmatrix}\psi _{\alpha }\\0\end{pmatrix}}}$

Dotted indices (anti-chiral indices)

Spinors with raised dotted indices, plus an overbar on the symbol (not index), are right-handed, and called anti-chiral indices.

${\displaystyle \Sigma _{\mathrm {right} }={\begin{pmatrix}0\\{\bar {\chi }}^{\dot {\alpha }}\\\end{pmatrix}}}$

Without the indices, i.e. "index free notation", an overbar is retained on right-handed spinor, since ambiguity arises between chirality when no index is indicated.

Hatted indices[]

Indices which have hats are called Dirac indices, and are the set of dotted and undotted, or chiral and anti-chiral, indices. For example, if

${\displaystyle \alpha =1,2\,,{\dot {\alpha }}={\dot {1}},{\dot {2}}}$

then a spinor in the chiral basis is represented as

${\displaystyle \Sigma _{\hat {\alpha }}={\begin{pmatrix}\psi _{\alpha }\\{\bar {\chi }}^{\dot {\alpha }}\\\end{pmatrix}}}$

where

${\displaystyle {\hat {\alpha }}=(\alpha ,{\dot {\alpha }})=1,2,{\dot {1}},{\dot {2}}}$

In this notation the Dirac adjoint (also called the Dirac conjugate) is

${\displaystyle \Sigma ^{\hat {\alpha }}={\begin{pmatrix}\chi ^{\alpha }&{\bar {\psi }}_{\dot {\alpha }}\end{pmatrix}}}$

See also[]

• Dirac equation
• Infeld–Van der Waerden symbols
• Lorentz transformation
• Pauli equation
• Ricci calculus

Notes[]

References[]

• Spinors in physics
• P. Labelle (2010), Supersymmetry, Demystified series, McGraw-Hill (USA), ISBN 978-0-07-163641-4
• Hurley, D.J.; Vandyck, M.A. (2000), Geometry, Spinors and Applications, Springer, ISBN 1-85233-223-9
• Penrose, R.; Rindler, W. (1984), Spinors and Space–Time, vol. Vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-24527-3 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
• Budinich, P.; Trautman, A. (1988), The Spinorial Chessboard, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-19078-3