the Dirac equation.
To determine the matrices, γµ, and their dimensionality, let us note that the Clifford algebra in (1.79)
can be written out explicitly as
We can choose any one of the matrices to be diagonal and without loss of generality, let us choose
From the fact that
Let us next note that using the relations from the Clifford algebra in (1.83), for a fixed i, we obtain
where “Tr” denotes trace over the matrix indices. On the other hand, the cyclicity property of the trace, namely,
leads to
Thus, comparing Eqs. (1.86) and (1.88), we obtain
For this to be true, we conclude that γ0 must have as many diagonal elements with value +1 as with −1. Consequently, the γµ matrices must be even dimensional.
Let us assume that n = 2N. The simplest nontrivial matrix structure would arise for N = 1 when the matrices would be two dimensional (namely, 2 × 2 matrices). We know that the three Pauli matrices along with the identity matrix define a complete basis for 2 × 2 matrices. However, as we know, they do not satisfy the Clifford algebra. Namely, if we define
In fact, we know that in two dimensions, there cannot exist four anti-commuting matrices.
The next choice is N = 2 for which the matrices will be four dimensional (4 × 4 matrices). In this case, we can find a set of four linearly independent, constant matrices which satisfy the Clifford algebra. A particular choice of these matrices, for example, has the form
where each element of the 4 × 4 matrices represents a 2 × 2 matrix and the σi correspond to the three Pauli matrices. This particular choice of the Dirac matrices is commonly known as the Pauli-Dirac representation.
There are, of course, other representations for the γµ matrices. However, the physics of Dirac equation is independent of any particular representation for the γµ matrices. This can be easily seen by invoking Pauli’s fundamental theorem which says that if there are two sets of (constant) matrices γµ and γ′µ satisfying the Clifford algebra, then, they must be related by a similarity transformation. Namely, if
then, there exists a constant, nonsingular matrix S such that (in fact, the similarity transformation is really a unitary transformation if we take the Hermiticity properties of the γ-matrices into account)
Therefore, given the equation
we obtain
with ψ = S−1ψ′. (The matrix S−1 can be moved past the momentum operator since it is assumed to be constant.) This shows that different representations of the γµ matrices are equivalent and merely correspond to a change in the basis of the wave function. As we know, a change of basis does not change physics.
To obtain the Hamiltonian for the Dirac equation, let us go to the coordinate representation where the Dirac equation (1.80) takes the form (remember ħ = 1)
Multiplying with γ0 from the left and using the fact that
Conventionally, one denotes
In terms of these matrices, then, we can write (1.97) as
This is a first order equation (in time derivative) like the Schrödinger equation and we can identify the Hamiltonian for the Dirac equation with (recall the time dependent Schrödinger equation (1.37))
In the particular representation of the γµ matrices in (1.91), we note that
We can now determine either from the definition in (1.98)
