42 Chapter 3. The Dirac Field Now that we have the transformation law for ¢, we should look for an appropriate field equation. One possibility is simply the Klein-Gordon equa- tion: (P +m?)p =0. (3.28) This works because the spinor transformation matrices (3.26) and (3.27) op- crate only in the “internal” space; they go right through the differential oper- ator. But it is possible to write a stronger, first-order equation, which implies (3.28) but contains additional information. To do this we need to know one more property of the 7 matrices. With a short computation you can verify that fy, SP?) = (FP? )9", or equivalently, (1 Sear SH) 41 = farpn 8) = (I~ furpo TP?) a". This equation is just the infinitesimal form of AVY Ay = Mir", (3.29) where a py Ay = exp(—je 5”) (3.30) is the spinor representation of the Lorentz transformation A (compare (3.19)). Equation (3.29) says that the 7 matrices are invariant under simultaneous rotations of their vector and spinor indices (just like the o* under spatial rotations). In other words, we can “take the vector index j: on 7 seriously,” and dot 7 into 0, to form a Lorentz-invariant differential operator. We are now ready to write down the Dirac equation. Here it is: (0, — m)p(a) = 0. (3.31) To show that it is Lorentz invariant, write down the Lorentz-transformed version of the left-hand side and calculate: [iu — m)ab(e) = [ey (AM) "Oy — m] Ay (Ate) = ALAY [ey"(A71)4,8, -— mJAy (Ata) =Ay [iay ofA (AT *)%,d, — m)y(At2) Ay is (AY dy — m] ep Ate Ay [ivy — m)b(A*) 0.