Peskin and Schroeder problem 3.5(a): Figuring out the cancellation

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The discussion revolves around a problem in Peskin and Schroeder where the user struggles with two terms that have a conflicting minus sign during the variation expansion. The first term involves the variation of the scalar field φ, while the second term arises from the variation of the field χ. The expectation is that these terms should combine to form a total derivative, but the sign discrepancy complicates this. The user discovers that the issue stems from the properties of complex conjugation affecting the order of Grassmann numbers. This realization highlights the importance of careful consideration of mathematical rules in field theory calculations.
Adgorn
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Homework Statement
Given the Lagrangian:
##L=\partial_\mu \phi \partial \phi^* +\chi^\dagger i \bar{\sigma}^\mu \partial_\mu \chi +F^*F##

Where ##\phi## is a complex vector field, ##\chi## is a free Weyl Fermion and ##F## is an auxiliary complex scalar field, show that the Lagrangian is symmetric under the transformation:

##\delta \phi = -i \epsilon^T \sigma^2 \chi##
##\delta \chi = \epsilon F +\sigma^\mu \partial_\mu \phi \sigma^2 \epsilon^*##
##\delta F = -i \epsilon^\dagger \bar{\sigma}^\mu \partial_\mu \chi##

where ##\epsilon## is a two component spinor of Grassmann numbers.
Relevant Equations
##\chi^T \sigma^2 \epsilon = \epsilon^T \sigma^2 \chi##
##\sigma^2 \sigma^\mu \sigma^2 = (\bar{\sigma}^\mu)^T##
##(\sigma^\mu \cdot \partial) (\bar{\sigma}^\mu \cdot \partial) = \partial^\mu \partial_\mu##
I've managed to account for all the terms except for two, which seem to have a minus sign I cannot get rid of. When expanding the variation, one of them comes from the ##\phi## variation:

$$-i \partial^\mu \phi \epsilon^\dagger \sigma^2 \partial_\mu \chi^* =-i \partial^\mu \phi \partial_\mu \chi^\dagger \sigma^2 \epsilon^*.$$

The other comes from the ##\chi## term and is:

$$i {\sigma}^\mu \bar{\sigma}^\nu \partial_\mu \partial_\nu\phi \chi^\dagger \sigma^2 \epsilon^*=i \partial_\mu \partial^\mu \phi \chi^\dagger \sigma^2 \epsilon^*.$$

If all is right in the world, these two terms should combine to make a total derivative, but they differ by a sign. The online solution manual writes the first term without the minus sign, but I don't see how that can be the case. Is there some rule with Grassmann numbers that I'm not aware of here?
 
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Never mind, I immediately realized upon hitting "post" that complex conjugation switches the order of Grassmann numbers. Better late then never.
 
Hitting the post button is one of the absolutely best ways of realizing things …
 
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Likes Adgorn, weirdoguy, jim mcnamara and 1 other person
So is there some elegant way to do this or am I just supposed to follow my nose and sub the Taylor expansions for terms in the two boost matrices under the assumption ##v,w\ll 1##, then do three ugly matrix multiplications and get some horrifying kludge for ##R## and show that the product of ##R## and its transpose is the identity matrix with det(R)=1? Without loss of generality I made ##\mathbf{v}## point along the x-axis and since ##\mathbf{v}\cdot\mathbf{w} = 0## I set ##w_1 = 0## to...

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