Describing relativistic fermions with two-component field

Abstract

With a non-unitary transformation, the Lagrangian of a Dirac fermion is decomposed into two decoupled sectors. We propose to describe massive relativistic fermions in gauge theories in a two-component form. All relations between the Green's functions in this form and those in the conventional four-component form are derived. It is shown that the S-matrix elements in both forms are exactly the same. The description of the fermion in the new form simplifies significantly the gamma-matrix algebra in the four-component form. In particular, in perturbative calculations the propagator of the fermion is a scalar function. The advantages of the two-component form make it very useful in practical applications.