Nonlinear Dirac equations and nonlinear gauge transformations

Abstract

Nonlinear Dirac equations (NLDE) are derived through a group N^2 of nonlinear (gauge) transformation acting in the corresponding state space. The construction generalises a construction for nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations. To relate N^2 with physically motivated principles we assume: locality (i.e. it contains no explicit derivative and no derivatives of the wave function), separability (i.e. it acts on product states componentwise) and Poincar\'e invariance. Furthermore we want that a positional density is invariant under N^2. Such nonlinear transformations yield NLDE which describe physically equivalent systems. To get 'new' systems, we extend this NLDE (gauge extension) and present a family of NLDE which is a slight nonlinear generalisation of the Dirac equation. We discuss and comment the fact that nonlinear evolutions are not consistent with the usual framework of quantum theory. To develop a corresponding extended framework one needs models for nonlinear evolutions which also indicate possible physical consequences of nonlinearities.