Helicity, Chirality, and Parity Violation

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concepts of helicity, chirality, and parity violation in the context of the weak force, particularly referencing the Li/Yang/Wu beta decay experiment. Participants explore the relationship between helicity and chiral states in massive fermions and question how the electroweak force is deduced to be chiral.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Technical explanation, Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions the relationship between helicity and chiral states, suggesting that for a massive fermion, chiral states are superpositions of helicity states and vice versa.
  • Another participant prompts whether the original poster has read the relevant paper on the topic.
  • A participant provides a reference to a paper but expresses uncertainty about its relevance to the original question.
  • Another participant notes that chirality is only introduced in the appendix of the referenced paper, implying that the main content may not address the initial inquiry directly.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not appear to reach a consensus, as there are differing views on the relevance of the referenced paper and the understanding of helicity and chirality in the context of the weak force.

Contextual Notes

There are limitations regarding the clarity of how helicity and chirality are defined and related in the context of the weak force, as well as the specific content of the referenced paper.

shirosato
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Hello all,

This is something that has irked me for a while. The Li/Yang/Wu beta decay showed parity violation in the weak force, but from what I gather, it was the helicities of the electrons they measured, while it is the chiral states which are important. For a massive fermion, aren't the chiral states superpositions of the helicity states and vice-versa? How exactly did they deduce that the electroweak force is chiral?
 
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Did you read their paper?
 
The reference griffiths gives is:

http://prola.aps.org/pdf/PR/v105/i4/p1413_1 ,

which doesn't seem to answer my question, unless I am missing something.
 
See reference 1. Note that they don't even need to introduce chirality until the appendix.
 

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