The role of the Pauli–Lubański vector for the Dirac, Weyl, Proca, Maxwell and Fierz–Pauli equations

Abstract

We analyze basic relativistic wave equations for the classical fields, such as Dirac's equation, Weyl's two-component equation for massless neutrinos and the Proca, Maxwell and Fierz–Pauli equations, from the viewpoint of the Pauli–Lubański vector and the Casimir operators of the Poincaré group. In general, in this group-theoretical approach, the above wave equations arise in certain overdetermined forms, which can be reduced to the conventional ones by a Gaussian elimination. A connection between the spin of a particle/field and consistency of the corresponding overdetermined system is emphasized in the massless case.