The Second-Quantized Theory of Spin-½ Particles in the Nonrelativistic Limit
Open Access
- 1 May 1952
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review B
- Vol. 86 (3), 340-347
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrev.86.340
Abstract
The second-quantized Dirac Hamiltonian for free electrons is transformed by a canonical transformation to a representation in which the positive and negative energy wave operators are separately represented by two-component operators. The transformation employed is the second-quantized analog of the one derived by Foldy and Wouthuysen in their discussion of the one-particle Dirac theory and its nonrelativistic limit. This transformation is then applied to the wave operators and the Hamiltonian in the second-quantized, charge-conjugate formalism for Dirac particles. The wave operators for positrons and electrons become linearly-independent two-component operators, and the Hamiltonian separates into an electron and a positron part, each of which contains only the corresponding two-component wave operators.Keywords
This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
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