Kinematics at infinite momentum

✍ Scribed by H. Bacry; N.P. Chang

• Book ID: 102986561
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1968
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 873 KB
• Volume: 47
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-4916
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-4916(68)90207-8

✦ Synopsis

In this paper we perform a contraction on the Poincare group which leads to a group isomorphic to the Poincare group. By "contracting" the canonical representation of the Poincare generators, we show that this iso-Poincare group describes the kinematics of a system of particles all with v, = 1. We give explicitly the behavior of the p. infinite states under finite isoPoincar6 transformations. We also give the corresponding transformation laws under parity and time reversal. As an application, we study a scattering process as viewed by an observer moving with v, = -1. This leads to a very natural justification of the impact parameter representation of S-matrix element. In conclusion, we give some indications on the covariant generalization of the iso-Poincare group.