Mathematical Physics – Justification for Writing a Dirac Spinor as Two Weyl Spinors

clifford-algebrasdifferential-geometrymathematical physicsrepresentation-theoryspin-geometry

I am cross listing this from physics SE in case it is more appropiate here. That post can be found here: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/794843/what-justifies-the-statement-that-a-dirac-spinor-can-be-written-as-two-weyl-spin.

I am approaching this from a Clifford algebra point of view.

Let $\mathbb{C}l(4)$ be a Clifford algebra over $\mathbb{C}^4$ with the usual bilinear product. Then there is an isomorphism
$$\mathbb{C}l(4) \cong \text{End}(\mathbb{C}^4)$$
and thus we may represent $\mathbb{C}l(4)$ using the following map:
$$\rho: \mathbb{C}l(4) \rightarrow \text{End}(\mathbb{C}^4).$$
An element of $\mathbb{C}^4$ is a Dirac spinor.

Now if we restrict $\mathbb{C}l(4)$ to only those products that consist of an even number of vectors, which we denote $\mathbb{C}l^0(4)$, we get the following
$$\mathbb{C}l^0(4) \xrightarrow{\cong}\text{End}(\mathbb{C}^2) \oplus \text{End}(\mathbb{C}^2).$$
We call elements of this representation space Weyl spinors, which thus belong to $\mathbb{C}^2$.

Hence if we choose a Dirac spinor that comes from an even number of elements in the Clifford algebra, it can be written as two Weyl spinors. However if the Dirac spinor comes from an element in the Clifford algebra that has an odd number of elements then it is not true that it can be written as two Weyl spinors.

Have I made a mistake somewhere in my understanding? If not, what justifies the claim often seen in physics books that "every Dirac spinor can be written as two Weyl spinors"?

Best Answer

There's a (hopefully) much less confusing way of viewing this, through the chirality operator (also defined in Hamilton's book), and denoted by $\Gamma$. It acts through the spinor representation on the space of Dirac spinors $\Sigma$, and its eigenvalues are $\pm 1$. From this, a direct sum decomposition is obtained $\Sigma = \Sigma_+\oplus\Sigma_-$. So every spinor $\sigma\in\Sigma$ can be written as $\sigma = \sigma_++\sigma_-$.

With respect to this decomposition, one has $\mathbb{C}l_0(n)\cong\text{End}(\Sigma_+)\oplus\text{End}(\Sigma_-)$, whereas $\mathbb{C}l_1(n)\cong\text{Hom}(\Sigma_+,\Sigma_-)\oplus\text{Hom}(\Sigma_-,\Sigma_+)$. In other words, even elements of the Clifford algebra preserve the parity (a.k.a. chirality) of the spinor, whereas odd elements reverse the parity.

The statement "... Dirac spinor that comes from an odd number of elements in the Clifford algebra..." does not make sense. Dirac spinors are elements of $\Sigma$, and they are acted upon by the Clifford algebra.