Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A spinor visualized as a vector pointing along the Möbius band, exhibiting a sign inversion when the circle (the "physical system") is continuously rotated through a full turn of 360°. [a] In geometry and physics, spinors (pronounced "spinner" IPA / s p ɪ n ər /) are elements of a complex vector space that can be associated with Euclidean ...
The conventional definition of the spin quantum number is s = n / 2 , where n can be any non-negative integer. Hence the allowed values of s are 0, 1 / 2 , 1, 3 / 2 , 2, etc. The value of s for an elementary particle depends only on the type of particle and cannot be altered in any known way (in contrast to the spin ...
Given a unit vector in 3 dimensions, for example (a, b, c), one takes a dot product with the Pauli spin matrices to obtain a spin matrix for spin in the direction of the unit vector. The eigenvectors of that spin matrix are the spinors for spin-1/2 oriented in the direction given by the vector. Example: u = (0.8, -0.6, 0) is a unit vector ...
The definition of a "vector" in physics (including both polar vectors and pseudovectors) is more specific than the mathematical definition of "vector" (namely, any element of an abstract vector space). Under the physics definition, a "vector" is required to have components that "transform" in a certain way under a proper rotation: In particular ...
In mathematics and physics, a vector space (also called a linear space) is a set whose elements, often called vectors, can be added together and multiplied ("scaled") by numbers called scalars. The operations of vector addition and scalar multiplication must satisfy certain requirements, called vector axioms.
In particle physics the spin–statistics theorem implies that the wavefunction of an uncharged fermion is a section of the associated vector bundle to the spin lift of an SO(N) bundle E. Therefore, the choice of spin structure is part of the data needed to define the wavefunction, and one often needs to sum over these choices in the partition ...
This definition should be taken as defining the torsion-free spin connection, since, by convention, the Christoffel symbols are derived from the Levi-Civita connection, which is the unique metric compatible, torsion-free connection on a Riemannian Manifold. In general, there is no restriction: the spin connection may also contain torsion.
In mathematics, the term "vector" is used for an element of any vector space. In physics, however, the term "vector" tends to refer almost exclusively to quantities like displacement or velocity , which have components that relate directly to the three dimensions of space , or relativistically, to the four of spacetime .