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Journal of physics. A, Proceedings of the Physical Society. General

Zitterbewegung as a subdynamics

J Rae

Published Oct 1, 1972• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The superoperator theory of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics is applied to the Dirac and Klein-Gordon equations. The transformation operators of this theory are found to be closely related to the Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation while the associated subdynamics corresponds to the separation into smooth motion and zitterbewegung.
DOI
10.1088/0305-4470/5/10/008

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One of us (C.G) has developed a transformation theory in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics that generalizes the usual transformation theory of quantum mechanics in the framework of the resolvent formalism of the Liouville-von Neumann operator extensively used by the Brussels school. Prigogine, George, and Henin have shown that the evolution of a dissipative system can be decomposed into separate subdynamics in orthogonal subspaces. The π subspace, containing all thermodynamics, can be seen as an extension of the subspace of the invariants in the absence of dissipation. In this subspace a suitable contracted description of the system can be given through a dressing operator χ, which has the property that HR = χ−1H0 can be considered as the renormalized energy. A differential equation that determines χ has been proposed by Mandel. It is useful to see, even for a nondissipative system, what relation the transformation theory in the Liouville-von Neumann formalism has to the standard transformations used in quantum mechanics. In this paper we consider a system that can be completely diagonalized by the Bogoliubov transformation. It is shown that in this case the Mandel equation can be solved and that χ−1H0 = HD, where HD is the diagonalized Hamiltonian, obtained by the Bogoliubov transformation.
We offer further results and a matured physical interpretation, concerning our invariant algebra P for the Dirac equation discussed in 1983 [ 1 ] and 1996 [ 2 ]. Especially, P may be fully described either with simple spectral theory of the Hamiltonian or with a decoupling modulo order — ∞ of the positive and negative energy parts of the Dirac equation, similar to the Foldy-Wouthuysen transform. There seems to be evidence indicating that only operators in P qualify as observables—i.e., can be measured with arbitrary precision—a feature comparable to the Heisenberg uncertainty relation.
A reformulation in a superspace is given for Van Hove and Janner’s perturbation theory based on the two-resolvent method for nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics. This is attained by introducing an ordered superoperator in the superspace. As an application of our formalism, the derivation of an asymptotic generalized master equation in a Markovian form is given. Further, it is investigated how a quantum subdynamics theory similar to the Brussels school’s one can be formally constructed. Our subdynamics theory is formulated on every eigenspace of a superoperator (the ss-Hamiltonian) of which the eigenvalue is related to the intrinsic parameter E of Van Hove and Janner’s generalized master equation.