Weyl spinors and the helicity formalism

Abstract

In this work we give a review of the original formulation of the relativistic wave equation for particles with spin one-half. Traditionally \`a la Dirac, it's proposed that the ``square root'' of the Klein-Gordon (K-G) equation involves a 4 component (Dirac) spinor and in the non-relativistic limit it can be written as 2 equations for two 2 component spinors. On the other hand, there exists Weyl's formalism, in which one works from the beginning with 2 component Weyl spinors, which are the fundamental objects of the helicity formalism. In this work we rederive Weyl's equations directly, starting from K-G equation. We also obtain the electromagnetic interaction through minimal coupling and we get the interaction with the magnetic moment. As an example of the use of that formalism, we calculate Compton scattering using the helicity methods.