Spinor Representations for Fields with any Spin: Lorentz Tensor Basis for Operators and Covariant Multipole Decomposition

Abstract

This paper discusses a framework to parametrize and decompose operator matrix elements for particles with higher spin $(j>1/2)$ using chiral representations of the Lorentz group, i.e. the $(j,0)$ and $(0,j)$ representations and their parity-invariant direct sum. Unlike traditional approaches that require imposing constraints to eliminate spurious degrees of freedom, these chiral representations contain exactly the $2j+1$ components needed to describe a spin-$j$ particle. The central objects in the construction are the $t$-tensors, which are generalizations of the Pauli four-vector ${\sigma }^{\mu }$ for higher spin. For the generalized spinors of these representations, we demonstrate how the algebra of the $t$-tensors allows to formulate a generalization of the Dirac matrix basis for any spin. For on-shell bilinears, we show that a set consisting exclusively of covariant multipoles of order $0\le m\le 2j$ forms a complete basis. We provide explicit expressions for all bilinears of the generalized Dirac matrix basis, which are valid for any spin value. As a byproduct of our derivations we present an efficient algorithm to compute the $t$-tensor matrix elements. The formalism presented here paves the way to use a more unified approach to analyze the non-perturbative QCD structure of hadrons and nuclei across different spin values, with clear physical interpretation of the resulting distributions as covariant multipoles.

Comments: v2: 54 pages, 3 figures; matches published version; added correspondence with massive helicity spinors, improved notation, clarified discussion