The covariant theory of strong interaction symmetries

Abstract

A classification of particles is suggested based on a Ũ(12) symmetry scheme. This is a relativistic generalization of the U(6) symmetry. The spin 12 and 32 baryons are each described by 20-component spinors which satisfy Bargmann-Wigner equations and belong to the 3̲6̲4̲ representation of the Ũ(12) group while the vector and p. s. mesons belong to the representation 1̲4̲3̲. The procedure for writing fully relativistic form factors is worked out in detail for baryon-meson and meson-meson cases. The new results are the following: (1) FC(q2)FM(q2)∝1+q2<2μ>m, Where F^c and F^M are (Sachs) electromagnetic form factors. (2) μ_D = 1 + 2m/< μ >, where < μ > is the mean mass of the 1^- multiplet and m the nucleon mass. (3) μ_ρ,K* = 3. The conventional U(6) results can be recovered by projecting to the positive energy subspace in the rest system for each particle. To any irreducible representation of the U(6) there corresponds one irreducible representation of Ũ(12) and vice versa.