Abstract
The internal motion of the electron (i.e. Zitterbewegung) takes place in a hyperplane in the Minkowski space orthogonal to the four-vector p u. For a four-component massless Dirac neutrino it takes place on a two-dimensional plane perpendicular to the three-momentum p, and for a two-component Weyl neutrino it takes place along a straight line perpendicular to p. The kinematical algebras of the compact internal quantum systems are so(5), so(4), and so(2), respectively.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Schrödinger, E., Sitzungsbr. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Phys.-Math. Kl. 24, 418 (1930).
Dirac, P.A.M., The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, 4th edn., Sec. 69, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1958.
Guertin, R.F. and Guth, E., Phys. Rev. D7, 1057 (1973).
Barut, A.O. and Bracken, A.J., in K.B.Wolf (ed.), Group Theoretical Methods in Physics, Lecture Notes in Physics, Vol. 135, p. 206, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1980; Phys. Rev. D23, 2454 (1981), Austr. J. Phys. 35, 353 (1982); Phys. Rev. D24, 3333 (1981).
Barut, A.O. and Bracken, A.J., submitted for publication.
Barut, A.O. and Raczka, R., Theory of Group Representations and Applications, Polish Scientific Publishers, Warsaw, 1977, p. 224.
Barut, A.O., and Thacker, W.D., ‘Covariant Description of the Zitterbewegung of the Electron and the SO(4, 2) and SO(3, 2)-Internal Algebras’, submitted for publication.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
On leave from Department of Mathematics, University of Queensland, Australia
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Barut, A.O., Bracken, A.J. & Thacker, W.D. The Zitterbewegung of the neutrino. Lett Math Phys 8, 477–482 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00400977
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00400977