Relativity in Clifford's Geometric Algebras of Space and Spacetime

Abstract

Of the various formalisms developed to treat relativistic phenomena, those based on Clifford's geometric algebra are especially well adapted for clear geometric interpretations and computational efficiency. Here we study relationships between formulations of special relativity in the spacetime algebra (STA) Cl{1,3} of Minkowski space, and in the algebra of physical space (APS)Cl{3}. STA lends itself to an absolute formulation of relativity, in which paths, fields, and other physical properties have observer-independent representations. Descriptions in APS are related by a one-to-one mapping of elements from APS to the even subalgebra STA+ of STA. With this mapping, reversion in APS corresponds to hermitian conjugation in STA. The elements of STA+ are all that is needed to calculate physically measurable quantities because only they entail the observer dependence inherent in any physical measurement. As a consequence, every relativistic physical process that can be modeled in STA also has a representation in APS, and vice versa. In the presence of two or more inertial observers, two versions of APS present themselves. In the absolute version, both the mapping to STA+ and hermitian conjugation are observer dependent, and the proper basis vectors are persistent vectors that sweep out timelike planes. In the relative version, the mapping and hermitian conjugation are then the same for all observers. Relative APS gives a covariant representation of relativistic physics with spacetime multivectors represented by multiparavectors. We relate the two versions of APS as consistent models within the same algebra.