1211.1855 (Mayeul Arminjon)

Should there be a spin-rotation coupling for a Dirac particle?    [PDF]

Mayeul Arminjon

It was argued by Mashhoon that a spin-rotation coupling term should add to the Hamiltonian operator in a rotating frame, as compared with the one in an inertial frame. For a Dirac particle, the Hamiltonian and energy operators were recently proved to depend on the tetrad field. We compute the energy operator in the inertial and the rotating frame, using three tetrad fields: one for each of two frameworks proposed to select the tetrad field so as to solve this non-uniqueness problem, and one proposed by Ryder. We find that Mashhoon's term is there if the tetrad rotates as does the reference frame---but then it is also there in the Hamiltonian for the inertial frame. In fact, the Dirac Hamiltonians in two reference frames in relative rotation, but corresponding to the same tetrad field, differ only by the angular momentum term. If Mashhoon's effect is to exist for a Dirac particle, the tetrad field must be selected in a specific way for each reference frame.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.1855