
Chapter
17
Spinor
Representations
for
Real
Orthogonal
Groups
We have seen in
the
previous
Chapter
that
among
the
fundamental
VIR's
for
the
groups
Dl
=
SO(2l)
and
Bl
=
SO(2l
+
1)
there
are some "unusual" rep-
resentations which
cannot
be
obtained
by
any
finite algebraic means from
the
familiar defining vector representations of these groups.
These
are
the
spinor
representations. For
Dl
we saw
that
there
are two inequivalent spinor VIR's,
which we denoted by
..1(1)
and
..1(2);
their
descriptions as fundamental
VIR's
,
and
their
highest weights, were found
to
be
(see Eqs.(16.43),(16.45)):
'T"\(l-1)
- A(1) -
{O
0 1
O}
.
A(l-l)
_
1 ( )
v
=
Ll
= , ... , " . _ -
"2
~1
+
~2
+
...
+
~1-1
-
~l
=
(1/2,1/2
,
...
,1/2,
-1/2);
'T"\(I)-A(2)_{O
01}
.A(
I)_1(
)
v
=
Ll
= ,
...
" . _
-"2
~1
+
~2
+
...
+
~1-1
+
~l
=
(1/2,1/2,
...
,
1/2,1/2)
(17.1 )
For
Bl
,
there
is only one spinor VIR, which
we
wrote
as..1 (see Eqs.(16.50,16
.5
2)):
1
V(l)
==
..1
==
{O,
...
,
0,
I} :
J(l)
=
"2(~1
+
~2
+
...
+
~l)
=
(1/2
,
1/2,
...
,
1/2)
(17.2)
As
part
of
the
general
Cartan
theory
of
VIR's
and
fundamental
VIR's
of
compact
simple Lie groups
and
algebras, these spinor representations more or
less fall
out
automatically, once
the
root
systems
and
simple
roots
for
Dl
and
Bl
are
understood.
At
the
same
level one also
understands
and
accepts
that
for
the
unitary
and
the
symplectic groups
there
is
nothing
analogous
to
spinors.
But
from
the
point
of view of physical applications, spinors
are
unusually interesting
and
useful quantities,
and
it
is therefore
appropriate
that
we
understand
them
in some detail from a somewhat different
starting
point.
In
doing so, of course,
we
can
be guided by
the
general
theory
outlined in
the
previous
Chapters.