2014/05/08 by Kim, Y. S.
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Mathematical Physics (math-ph) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1405.2099
It is noted that the Poincaré sphere for polarization optics contains the symmetries of the Lorentz group. The sphere is thus capable of describing the internal space-time symmetries dictated by Wigner's little groups. For massive particles, the little group is like the three-dimensional rotation group, while it is like the two-dimensional Euclidean group for massless particles. It is shown that the Poincaré sphere, in addition, has a symmetry parameter corresponding to reducing the particle mass from a positive value to zero. The Poincaré sphere thus the gives one unified picture of Wigner's little groups for massive and massless particles.