Photon under repeated transverse Lorentz boosts: An apparent paradox
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2024
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| _version_ | 1866911886107213824 |
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| author | LeBohec, Tugdual |
| author_facet | LeBohec, Tugdual |
| contents | We investigate the effects of the repeated application of Lorentz-boosts to the four momentum of a photon in the transverse direction and observe that this can take us to a reference frame in which the direction of the photon's momentum is apparently reversed. We further extend this to an infinite succession of infinitesimal transverse Lorentz-boosts and show it amounts to a rotation of the photon's momentum, while the transformation is not a simple rotation but a Lorentz transformation. These possibly surprising results can be understood in light of the Wigner rotation: the combination of Lorentz-boosts along different directions amounts to a Lorentz-boost combined with a rotation. The presented exercises are some more illustrations of the counterintuitive behavior of Lorentz-boost combinations. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_15504 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Photon under repeated transverse Lorentz boosts: An apparent paradox LeBohec, Tugdual General Physics We investigate the effects of the repeated application of Lorentz-boosts to the four momentum of a photon in the transverse direction and observe that this can take us to a reference frame in which the direction of the photon's momentum is apparently reversed. We further extend this to an infinite succession of infinitesimal transverse Lorentz-boosts and show it amounts to a rotation of the photon's momentum, while the transformation is not a simple rotation but a Lorentz transformation. These possibly surprising results can be understood in light of the Wigner rotation: the combination of Lorentz-boosts along different directions amounts to a Lorentz-boost combined with a rotation. The presented exercises are some more illustrations of the counterintuitive behavior of Lorentz-boost combinations. |
| title | Photon under repeated transverse Lorentz boosts: An apparent paradox |
| topic | General Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15504 |