Quantum Mechanics – Rotation of a Spinor

angular momentumgroup-theoryquantum mechanicsrotationspinors

I have a question about an intuitive approach on spinors as certain mathematical
objects which have certain properties that make them similar to vectors but on the
other hand there is a property which differ spinors from vectors:

Wiki gives a rather geometrical description of a spinor:

"Unlike vectors and tensors, a spinor transforms to its negative when the space
is continuously rotated through a complete turn from $0°$ to $360°$ (see picture)."

Other sources state moreover that if you rotate a spinor by $720°$ degrees
you obtain the same spinor. Clearly, if we rotate a usual vector by $360°$ we obtain the same vector. So spinors are not vectors in usual sense.

QUESTION: What I not understand is what is precisely a 'rotation of a spinor'. How this kind of 'rotation' can be described?

I know that the question sounds banally, but if we recall what is a rotation in common naive sense we think of a rotation in a very concrete framework: the naive rotation is an operation by an element from group $SO(3)$ on real space $\mathbb{R}^3$. Since spinors live not in $\mathbb{R}^3$ I think it's neccessary to specify precisely what is a 'roation' in the space where spinors live.

Lets draw analogy to usual vectors & $3D$ space. A usual rotation in $3D$ is determined
by rotation axis $\vec{b}$ and rotation angle $\phi$. Say wlog we rotate around $z$-axis
by angle $\phi$, then the rotation is decoded by $3 \times 3$ matrix
$R_{\phi} \in SO(3)$

$$R_{\phi}=
\begin{pmatrix}cos(\phi)&-sin(\phi)&0\\sin(\phi)&cos(\phi)&0\\0&0&1\end{pmatrix} $$

That is if $\vec{v} \in \mathbb{R}^3$ then the rotation of $\vec{v}$ is simply
$R \vec{v}$.

But what is a 'rotation of a spinor' concretely? How is it described?

For sake of simplicity lets focus on the most common spinor representation
from particle physics: The subgroup $SU(2) \subset SL(2, \mathbb{C})$ provides a simply connected
$2$ to $1$ covering map $f:SU(2) \to SO(3)$ of rotation group. Clearly $SU(2)$
acts as a subgroup of $SL(2, \mathbb{C})$ on complex vector space $\mathbb{C}^2$.
Since in this setting $SU(2)$ provides a spinor representation we can call
certain vectors of $\mathbb{C}^2$ 'spinors', right?

But what is a rotation of spinors here? Say we take an arbitrary spinor
$s \in \mathbb{C}^2$ and want perform a 'rotation' around certain axis by
certain fixed degree $\phi$.
Which object in $SU(2)$ represents this so called 'rotation' and why such operation
on spinors is called 'rotation'?

Best Answer

A rotation of a spinor $\psi$ (looks like a complex 2-vector) by an angle $\phi$ around the unit axis $\hat n$ is but $$ \psi \mapsto e^{i {\phi\over 2} \left(\hat{n} \cdot \vec{\sigma}\right)} \psi= \left (I\cos {\phi\over 2} + i (\hat{n} \cdot \vec{\sigma}) \sin {\phi\over 2}\right ) \psi , $$ where $\vec \sigma$ are the three Pauli matrices, twice the generators of rotations in the doublet representation.

You can see how a 2π rotation amounts to flipping its sign, and twice that amounts to the identity.

Related Question