Ghosts as negative spinors

DOI10.1016/S0550-3213(02)00636-3zbMATH Open0999.81031arXivhep-th/0207110MaRDI QIDQ701538FDOQ701538

Authors: André J. van Tonder 

Publication date: 3 November 2002

Published in: Nuclear Physics B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We study the the properties of a BRST ghost degree of freedom complementary to a two-state spinor. We show that the ghost may be regarded as a unit carrier of negative entropy. We construct an irreducible representation of the su(2) Lie algebra with negative spin, equal to -1/2, on the ghost state space and discuss the representation of finite SU(2) group elements. The Casimir operator J^2 of the combined spinor-ghost system is nilpotent and coincides with the BRST operator Q. Using this, we discuss the sense in which the positive and negative spin representations cancel in the product to give an effectively trivial representation. We compute an effective dimension, equal to 1/2, and character for the ghost representation and argue that these are consistent with this cancellation.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0207110

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zbMATH Keywords

Casimir operatorsirreducible su(2) Lie-algebra representationunit negative-entropy carrier

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Finite-dimensional groups and algebras motivated by physics and their representations (81R05) Spinor and twistor methods applied to problems in quantum theory (81R25)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• On the representation theory of negative spin

Cited In (6)

• On the representation theory of negative spin
• Cohomology and decomposition of tensor product representations of \(\text{SL}(2,\mathbb R)\)
• Negative-spin quasiparticles in quantum Hall effect
• GHOSTS AND TACHYONS IN THE FIFTH DIMENSION
• Entangled spins and ghost-spins
• THE SUPERFIELD QUANTISATION OF A SUPERPARTICLE ACTION WITH AN EXTENDED LINE ELEMENT

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