3.1 Lorentz Invariance in Wave Equations 37 - ~ ‘S ) (a) scalar field (b) vector field Figure 3.1. When a rotation is performed on a vector field, it affects the orientation of the vector as well as the location of the region containing the configuration. such as the 4-current density j#(:r) or the vector potential AM(r). In this case, the quantity that is distributed in spacetime also carries an orientation, which must be rotated or boosted. As shown in Fig. 3.1(b), the orientation must be rotated forward as the point of evaluation of the field is changed: under 3-dimensional rotations, — V(x) + RUVI(R4z); under Lorentz transformations, — V(x) A",V’(A7a). Tensors of arbitrary rank can be built out of vectors by adding more indices, with correspondingly more factors of A in the transformation law. Using such vector and tensor fields we can write a variety of Lorentz-invariant equations, for example, Maxwell's equations, Fy, =0 or PA, — 8, 0"A, = (3.6) which follow from the Lagrangian Lvraxwell = — 3 (Fur)? = —4 (0, Ay — 0, Ay)? (3.7) In general, any equation in which each term has the same set of uncontracted Lorentz indices will naturally be invariant under Lorentz transformations. This method of tensor notation yields a large class of Lorentz-invariant equations, but it turns out that there are still more. How do we find them? We could try to systematically find all possible transformation laws for a field. Then it would not be hard to write invariant Lagrangians. For simplicity, we will restrict our attention to linear transformations, so that, if 6, is an n component multiplet, the Lorentz transformation law is given by an n xn matrix M(A): ®,() 4 Map(A)&,(A72). (3.8)