Double sided arrow notation in Dirac Field Lagrangian

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on the use of double sided arrow notation in the Lagrangian of a Dirac field, specifically in the context of covariant derivatives. The notation is defined as \( A\overset{\leftrightarrow}{\partial_{\mu}}B:=A(\partial_{\mu} B)-(\partial_{\mu} A)B \). It is established that when using normal partial derivatives, both forms of the Lagrangian yield the same physical results due to total derivatives. However, the equivalence of these forms under covariant derivatives, such as \( D_{\mu}=\partial_{\mu}+ieA_{\mu} \), raises questions about the definition of the action \( (D_{\mu}\overline{\psi}) \) and the implications for the Lagrangian density.

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TAKEDA Hiroki
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In a thesis, I found double sided arrow notation in the lagrangian of a Dirac field (lepton, quark etc) as follows.
\begin{equation}
L=\frac{1}{2}i\overline{\psi}\gamma^{\mu}\overset{\leftrightarrow}{D_{\mu}}\psi
\end{equation}
In the thesis, Double sided arrow is defined as follows.
\begin{equation}
A\overset{\leftrightarrow}{\partial_{\mu}}B:=A(\partial_{\mu} B)-(\partial_{\mu} A)B
\end{equation}
If covariant derivative is normal partial derivative ##D_{\mu}=\partial_{\mu}##,both
$$L=\frac{1}{2}i\overline{\psi}\gamma^{\mu}\overset{\leftrightarrow}{\partial_{\mu}}\psi$$ and $$L=\frac{1}{2}i\overline{\psi}\gamma^{\mu}{\partial_{\mu}}\psi$$ can give the same physical results, because the difference between two expressions is a total derivative.
But, in a normal covariant derivative case, I can not understand if these two expression give the same physical results. For example, when a covariant derivative is given by
$$D_{\mu}=\partial_{\mu}+ieA_{\mu}$$
,this action is defined by
\begin{equation}
\overline{\psi}\gamma^{\mu}\overset{\leftrightarrow}{D_{\mu}}\psi=\overline{\psi}\gamma^{\mu}(D_{\mu}\psi)-(D_{\mu}\overline{\psi})\gamma^{\mu}\psi
\end{equation}
?
In that case, how this action ##(D_{\mu}\overline{\psi})## is defined?
 
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The Lagrangian density is defined up to total 4D divergences, as you correctly wrote above. Thus your Lagrangian should be equivalent to
$$\mathcal{L}=\overline{\psi} (\mathrm{i} \mathrm{D}_{\mu} \gamma^{\mu}+m) \psi.$$
It's a slight advantage to have a symmetric form of the Lagrangian, and that's why sometimes you find the symmetrized version of the Lagrangian you quoted.

I've not done the calculation, but I think as noted it's indeed not clear what the 2nd term in (3) should be. I guess to clarify this you should try to reformulate it in terms of
$$\overline{D_{\mu} \gamma^{\mu} \psi}=(D_{\mu} \gamma^{\mu} \psi)^{\dagger} \gamma^0.$$
 

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