A groupoidal description of elementary particles

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Ibort, Alberto, Marmo, Giuseppe, Mas, Arnau, Schiavone, Luca
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Ibort, Alberto
Marmo, Giuseppe
Mas, Arnau
Schiavone, Luca
author_facet Ibort, Alberto
Marmo, Giuseppe
Mas, Arnau
Schiavone, Luca
contents In this work, we show that extending the standard description of space-time symmetries from groups of isometries to the more flexible framework of kinematical groupoids allows for the extension of Wigner's program to curved space-times. We propose a new definition of elementary particles as irreducible projective representations of the kinematical groupoids supporting the theory. By choosing a natural kinematical groupoid associated with any space-time, called the \textit{Wigner groupoid}, we demonstrate that such irreducible projective representations are characterized by quantum numbers similar to those characterizing the irreducible projective representations of the Poincaré group. Describing the irreducible projective representations of groupoids poses its own difficulties. To address this, we develop a suitable extension of Mackey's theory of induced representations of groups, proving that projective representations of transitive Lie groupoids with connected isotropy groups are in one-to-one correspondence with the projective representations of their isotropy groups. The application of these results provides a classification of elementary particles valid for a large class of space-times. This classification largely reproduces Wigner's standard classification on Minkowski space-time, while a new family of representations emerges, corresponding to massless particles in the presence of a magnetic-like background field.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_14296
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A groupoidal description of elementary particles
Ibort, Alberto
Marmo, Giuseppe
Mas, Arnau
Schiavone, Luca
Mathematical Physics
Differential Geometry
In this work, we show that extending the standard description of space-time symmetries from groups of isometries to the more flexible framework of kinematical groupoids allows for the extension of Wigner's program to curved space-times. We propose a new definition of elementary particles as irreducible projective representations of the kinematical groupoids supporting the theory. By choosing a natural kinematical groupoid associated with any space-time, called the \textit{Wigner groupoid}, we demonstrate that such irreducible projective representations are characterized by quantum numbers similar to those characterizing the irreducible projective representations of the Poincaré group. Describing the irreducible projective representations of groupoids poses its own difficulties. To address this, we develop a suitable extension of Mackey's theory of induced representations of groups, proving that projective representations of transitive Lie groupoids with connected isotropy groups are in one-to-one correspondence with the projective representations of their isotropy groups. The application of these results provides a classification of elementary particles valid for a large class of space-times. This classification largely reproduces Wigner's standard classification on Minkowski space-time, while a new family of representations emerges, corresponding to massless particles in the presence of a magnetic-like background field.
title A groupoidal description of elementary particles
topic Mathematical Physics
Differential Geometry
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14296