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I am confused with the equation 3.3 in Peskin & Schroeder:

Given a Lorentz transformation $$x^\mu\rightarrow x'^\mu=\Lambda^{\mu\;\;}_{\;\;\nu} x^\nu,\tag{3.1}$$ the field transforms as$$\phi(x)\rightarrow\phi'(x)=\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x).\tag{3.2}$$ I'm trying to reproduce the following equation: $$\partial_\mu\phi\rightarrow\partial_\mu(\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x))=(\Lambda^{-1})^\nu_{\;\;\mu}\partial_\nu\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x),\tag{3.3}$$ but I'm doing: $$ \partial_\mu\phi(\partial_\mu((\Lambda^{-1})^\alpha_{\;\;\beta}x^\beta))\rightarrow\partial_\mu\phi((\Lambda^{-1})^\alpha_{\;\;\mu}). $$ So, what I'm doing wrong?

Qmechanic
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2 Answers2

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The equation that you're trying to reproduce is just an application of the chain rule. I think the "$\rightarrow$" maybe confuses, but the equality on the right of the arrow is just calculus.

Looking at your equation, I'm not able to understand what you thought the starting point for this calculation should be. For sure what you have on the left side of your equation cannot be right because the function $\phi$ here takes a vector (1-index object), and you have given it some sort of two-index object with indices $\mu$ and $\alpha$. (The index $\beta$ in your expression is summed inside the argument to $\phi$. The index $\mu$ is summed in the overall expression you gave, but not entirely within the argument to $\phi$ itself.)

Brick
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All right, so we know that the scalar field transforms as follows under the Lorentz transformation: $$ \phi(x)\rightarrow\phi'(x)=\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x) $$ as you have written. Note also that we have the following Lorentz transformation of the 4-vector: $$ x^\mu\rightarrow x'^\mu=\Lambda^{\mu\;\;}_{\;\;\nu}x^\nu \ , $$ which may be rewritten as follows: $$ x^\nu=(\Lambda^{-1})^{\nu\;\;}_{\;\;\mu}x'^\mu \ . \tag{1} $$ Now, let's look closely at the transformation of the 4-derivative of the scalar field under the Lorentz transformation: $$ \begin{align} \partial_\mu\phi(x)\rightarrow\partial'_\mu\phi'(x)&=\frac{\partial}{\partial x'^\mu}\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x) \\ &=\frac{\partial x^\nu}{\partial x'^\mu}\frac{\partial}{\partial x^\nu}\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x) \\ &=\frac{\partial}{\partial x'^\mu}\left[(\Lambda^{-1})^{\nu\;\;}_{\;\;\rho}x'^\rho\right]\partial_\nu\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x) \\ &=(\Lambda^{-1})^{\nu\;\;}_{\;\;\rho}\delta^\rho_\mu\partial_\nu\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x) \\ &=(\Lambda^{-1})^{\nu\;\;}_{\;\;\mu}\partial_\nu\phi(\Lambda^{-1}x) \ . \end{align} $$ In the second line, we have used the chain rule, and in the third line, we have used Eq. (1). This shows that whenever we perform the Lorentz transformation, we have to transform not only the fields but also all 4-vectors. And doing this, we have obtained the result from Peskin&Schroeder.

Camillus
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