3.3 Free-Particle Solutions of the Dirac Equation 45 3.3 Free-Particle Solutions of the Dirac Equation To get some feel for the physics of the Dirac equation, let us now discuss its plane-wave solutions. Since a Dirac field ¢ obeys the Klein-Gordon equation, we know immediately that it can be written as a linear combination of plane waves: w(x) = u(p)e”*, where p? = m?. (3.45) For the moment we will concentrate on solutions with positive frequency, that is, p? > 0. The column vector u(p) must obey an additional constraint, found by plugging (3.45) into the Dirac equation: ("Pu — m)u(p) = 0. (3.46) It is easiest to analyze this equation in the rest frame, where p = po = (m,0); the solution for general p can then be found by boosting with Ay. In the rest frame, Eq. (3.46) becomes (rm? — m)utaa) =m (]_f)) ule) =0, and the solutions are u(po) = vin(§ (3.47) for any numerical two-component spinor €. We conventionally normalize € so that £1€ = 1; the factor \/m has been inserted for future convenience. We can interpret the spinor £ by looking at the rotation generator (3.27): € transforms under rotations as an ordinary two-component spinor of the rotation group, and therefore determines the spin orientation of the Dirac solution in the usual way. For example, when € = (4), the particle has spin up along the 3-direction. Notice that after applying the Dirac equation, we are free to choose only two of the four components of u(p). This is just what we want, since a spin-1/2 particle has only two physical states—spin up and spin down. (Of course we are being a bit premature in talking about particles and spin. We will prove that the spin angular momentum of a Dirac particle is h/2 when we quantize the Dirac theory in Section 3.5; for now, just notice that there are two possible solutions u(p) for any momentum p.) Now that we have the general form of u(p) in the rest frame, we can obtain u(p) in any other frame by boosting. Consider a boost along the 3-direction. First we should remind ourselves of what the boost does to the 4-momentum vector. In infinitesimal form, ()- PG al):