Physics Asked on June 14, 2021
I read several textbooks of QFT and find that there are two ways to classify the particles or fields. The first one is to study the irreducible representation of Lorentz group (or exactly the universal covering group $SL(2,C)$). Then we find irreducible but not unitary representation $(i,j)$ which is finite dimensional and use them to represent different kinds of field. The second one is to study the unitary representation of Poincare group and we can classify particles by mass and spin.
Then my question is:
Why do we not study the finite dimensional irreducible representation of Poincare group, like Lorentz group? Some people will say that the useful representation in Quantum Mechanics is unitary representation and Poincare group which is not compact do not have finite dimensional unitary rep. However this argument is not convincing, because it cannot explain why we still study the finite rep of Lorentz group.
Except the “trivial” rep., does there exist any other finite dimensional irreducible rep. of Poincare group? Here “trivial” means the rep. that we can get from enlarging the original rep. of Lorentz group by letting translation act trivially on original representational space.
For example, we have a faithful rep. of Poincare group, $begin{pmatrix} Lambda & x 0 & 1 end{pmatrix}$, where $Lambda$ is Lorentz transformation and $x$ is translation. This is a reducible but indecomposable representation. We can always define an irreducible rep. of Poincare group by
$$f:begin{pmatrix} Lambda & x 0 & 1 end{pmatrix}rightarrow D_{(i,j)}(Lambda)$$
where $D_{(i,j)}(Lambda)$ is the irreducible rep. of Lorentz group. So is there other finite dimensional irreducible rep. of Poincare group?
Let $phi : mathbb{R}^4to V$ be a field with (complex) target vector space $V$, transforming in a finite-dimensional projective representation $rho_text{fin} : mathrm{SO}(1,3)tomathrm{U}(V)$. As it is a field, the representation of the translations $mathbb{R}^4$ on $V$ is the trivial one, since the field transforms as $phi(x)overset{xmapsto x+a}{mapsto} phi(x+a)$. Hence, the field transforms in a finite-dimensional representation $sigma_text{fin}$ of the Poincaré group, but the non-trivial, i.e. interesting, part is the representation of the Lorentz group. Hence, your premise that we "only study finite-dimensional representations of the Lorentz group" is wrong, it's just that the finite-dimensional translations are always represented by their trivial representation.
In the quantum field theory, the field now becomes operator-valued, acting upon some Hilbert space $mathcal{H}$. Since the quantum field theory shall have Poincare symmetry, there must be a projective unitary representation $sigma_text{U} : mathrm{SO}(1,3)ltimesmathbb{R}^4tomathrm{U}(mathcal{H})$ upon this space of state. By one of the Wightman axioms, we have that $$ sigma_text{fin}(Lambda,a)phi(Lambda^{-1} x-a) = sigma_text{U}(Lambda,a)^dagger phi(x)sigma_text{U}(Lambda,a)quad forall Lambdainmathrm{SO}(1,3),ainmathbb{R}^4$$ where on the l.h.s., $sigma_text{fin}$ is a finite-dimensional matrix acting upon the vector $(phi^1,dots,phi^{dim(V)})$, and on the r.h.s., the $sigma_text{U}$ are operators on $mathcal{H}$ are multiplied with each component operator $phi^i$.
We study the finite-dimensional representations because of this relationship - we have to know the finite-dimensional representations to be able to give the "classical" field, and we have to know the infinite-dimensional unitary representation to know how the Poincaré symmetry acts on states, and because the irreducible unitary representations correspond to particles by Wigner's classification. Since the Poincaré group is just as non-compact as the Lorentz group, these are also all infinite-dimensional.
Correct answer by ACuriousMind on June 14, 2021
The matrix reps of the Poincare group can be found by solving the commutation relations. See arXiv:math-ph/0401002v3 2 Jul 2007 A Derivation of Vector and Momentum Matrices.
Answered by Richard Shurtleff on June 14, 2021
About point 2, This paper shows some non-trivial finite-dimensional representations of the Poincaré algebra. One interesting thing that happens is that, since Poincaré group is not compact and continuous, we cannot guarantee the representations are either irreducible or completely reducible (or decomposible). Indeed, the paper deals with the indecomposable ones.
Answered by megaleo on June 14, 2021
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