44 Chapter 3 The Dirac Field The two-component objects qr, and wp are called left-handed and right- handed Weyl spinors. You can easily verify that their transformation laws, under infinitesimal rotations @ and boosts 8, are be (1-182 —B- Byer; Ur (1-0-2 48-Dup. These transformation laws are connected by complex conjugation; using the identity (3.37) oo* = —a0, (3.38) it is not hard to show that the quantity 074) transforms like a right-handed spinor. In terms of Hz, and wp, the Dirac equation is HH - —m (Oo +a-V) wr\ _ (ev, = (9,72 -w) ve \)- The two Lorentz group representations wz, and Wp are mixed by the mass term in the Dirac equation. But if we set m = 0, the equations for q, and viz decouple: (3.39) i(00 — 0 - V)vt = 0; i( +o- Vr =0. These are called the Weyl equations; they are especially important when treat- ing neutrinos and the theory of weak interactions. It is possible to clean up this notation slightly. Define ot s(l,e), a =(1,-0), (3.41) ha CG “al (3.42) (The bar on & has absolutely nothing to do with the bar on @.) Then the Dirac equation can be written (3.40) so that —m io-0\ (br (a7 “m) ($e) 649 and the Weyl equations become iG-Op,=0; io -OUR= (3.44)