Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

206 submissions , 164 unreviewed
5,103 questions , 2,249 unanswered
5,355 answers , 22,798 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
820 active unimported users
More ...

  Time Reversal in Euclidean Spacetime - unitary or antiunitary?

+ 4 like - 0 dislike
1260 views

(pre-request) We know that time reversal operator $T$ is an anti-unitary operator in Minkowsi Spacetime. i.e.

$$ T z=z^*T $$ where the complex number $z$ becomes its complex conjugate. See, for example, Peskin and Schroeder ``An Introduction To Quantum Field Theory'' p.67 Eq (3.133).


(Question) Is Euclidean time reversal operator $T_E$ an unitary operator, i.e.

$$ T_E z=z T_E \;\;\;(?) $$

or an anti-unitary operator in Euclidean Spacetime? Why is necessarily that or why is it necessarily not that? Or should $T_E$ be an unitary operator like Parity $P$ instead?

However, here see the attempt of a PRL paper, Euclidean continuation of the Dirac fermion where time reversal $T_E$ is given by, on page 3: $$ T_E z=z^*T_E \;\;\;(?) $$ $T_E$ is still an anti-unitary operator!

It seems to me if one consider Euclidean spacetime, the Euclidean signature is the same sign, say $(-,-,-,-,\dots)$, then Parity $P$ acts on the space is equivalent to the Euclidean time reversal operator $T_E$ acts on Euclidean time (which is now like one of the spatial dimensions). So shouldn't $T_E$ be an unitary operator as Parity $P$?


[Other Refs]

i. Please, you may read, an earlier Phys.SE question here, probably is poorly formulated, so cannot draw the efforts of people to answer the question. Here let me try an easier way and focus on one issue only.

ii. Osterwalder-Schrader (OS) approach, and ``A continuous Wick rotation for spinor fields and supersymmetry in Euclidean space'' by Peter van Nieuwenhuizen, Andrew Waldron.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-06-04 11:36 (UCT), posted by SE-user Idear
asked Oct 21, 2013 in Theoretical Physics by wonderich (1,500 points) [ no revision ]
Starting with $Tz = z^*T$, and assuming $T = iT_E$, this would give $(iT_E)z = z^*(iT_E)$, that is $i(T_Ez) = (z^*i)T_E$, that is $(T_Ez) = -i(z^*i)T_E$, that is $T_Ez =z^*T_E$

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-06-04 11:36 (UCT), posted by SE-user Trimok
Thanks Trimok, this can be an mathematical answer for a logical reason; I am sure that is what have been done in wick rotating with fermion fields. So even if Euclidean spacetime seemly treat spatial and euclidean-time the same in the signature/metric sense, but when the fermion gets involved, it will still tell the difference between euclidean-time'' and the remained space''? Simply by this anti-unitary property?

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-06-04 11:36 (UCT), posted by SE-user Idear
I suppose there exist more rigorous explanations for your question. But a point is that the real space-time is Minkowskian, so analytic continuation in Euclidean space-time does not mean that we forget all the properties and behaviours linked to the real Minkowskian space-time, and its Lorentz representations (the particles). Of course, all this could be very subtle...

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-06-04 11:36 (UCT), posted by SE-user Trimok

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$ysicsO$\varnothing$erflow
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...