HELICITY PROJECTION OPERATOR: PROPERTIES AND

COMMUTATORS

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Post date: 15 June 2018.
References: Amitabha Lahiri & P. B. Pal, A First Book of Quantum Field
Theory, Second Edition (Alpha Science International, 2004) - Chapter 4,
Problems 4.16 - 4.17.
We’ve seen that the helicity projection operator is given by

1
Π± (p) ≡ (1 ± Σp ) (1)
2
where

Σ·p
Σp ≡ (2)
p
where Σ is a 3-vector defined in terms of the spin matrices as

Σ ≡ σ 23 , σ 31 , σ 12


(3)
which amounts to the components of spin along the x, y and z axes. The
quantity p is the magnitude of the 3-momentum:

p ≡ |p| (4)
We can now derive a few properties of this operator. First, since we know
that

Σ2p = I (5)
we have

1
Π2± = 1 ± 2Σp + Σ2p


(6)
4
1
= (1 ± Σp ) (7)
2
= Π± (8)
Also
1
 HELICITY PROJECTION OPERATOR: PROPERTIES AND COMMUTATORS 2

1
Π+ Π− = (1 + Σp ) (1 − Σp ) (9)
4
1
= 1 − Σ2p


(10)
4
=0 (11)
1
Π− Π+ = (1 − Σp ) (1 + Σp ) (12)
4
1
= 1 − Σ2p


(13)
4
=0 (14)

Finally, it’s fairly obvious that

Π+ + Π− = 1 (15)

We can also consider the commutators of Π± with the energy projection

operators Λ± . We’ll look at [Λ+ , Π± ] since the other commutator [Λ+ , Π± ]
is similar. From its definition

/p + m
Λ+ = (16)
2m
1

= γ µ pµ + m (17)
2m
 
To find [Λ+ , Π± ], we need consider only γ µ pµ , Σp since the m in Λ+ is
just a multiple of the unit matrix, and the other component of Π+ is the unit
operator which commutes with everything. We can write out Σp in terms of
the σ i j so we have

1 23 1
σ p + σ 31 p2 + σ 12 p3


Σp = (18)
p

We therefore need the various commutators γ µ , σ i j , which we’ve already

 
worked out

 µ i j
γ , σ = 2i gµi γ j − gµ j γ i


(19)

Plugging this into the commutator, we have

 HELICITY PROJECTION OPERATOR: PROPERTIES AND COMMUTATORS 3

2i  µ2 3
g γ − gµ3 γ 2 pµ p1 + gµ3 γ 1 − gµ1 γ 3 pµ p2 +
 µ 


γ p µ , Σp =
2mp
(20)
gµ1 γ 2 − gµ2 γ1
pµ p3


(21)
i  3 2 1
γ p p − γ 2 p3 p1 + γ 1 p3 p2 − γ 3 p1 p2 + γ 2 p1 p3 − γ 1 p2 p3

=
mp
(22)
=0 (23)
Therefore

[Λ+ , Π± ] = 0 (24)
The other commutator, [Λ− , Π± ], just requires replacing pµ by −pµ in
20 so is also zero, so we have

[Λ+ , Π± ] = [Λ− , Π± ] = 0 (25)