Representation of the Dirac equation and the variational principle

摘要

The performance of the variational method applied to the Dirac equation depends on the selected representation of this equation in four-dimensional spinor space. This dependence is analyzed. It is pointed out that the representations of Weyl and of Biedenharn have several attractive features. The usefulness of the so-called kinetically balanced Dirac equation is also briefly discussed. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.