What is the physical meaning of Wigner rotation?

[elec-tric]

i have read about wigner rotation but i think i can't understand it well , i want to know the physical meaning of it .

 

[elec-tric]

no body knows about wigner rotation ?

 

[tiny-tim]

Welcome to PF!

… i want to know the physical meaning of it .

Hi elec-tric! Welcome to PF!

By "physical meaning", do you mean a geometric one?

If you move something along the surface of a sphere without rotating it, first north then east, its position is at a slight angle to the position it would have if you moved it along the hypotenuse.

Wigner rotation is the same thing in the "space of velocities" (or "space of momentums") … the space is curved, so parallel transport between two "points" depends on the path taken.

 

[elec-tric]

thanx tiny-tim :D , but if you have a site or even a book or a paper about wigner rotation , please send it :D

 

[tiny-tim]

hmm … most books on QFT regard it as fairly elementary …

I happen to like Weinberg's book (available online at http://books.google.com/books?id=h9...another book on quantum field theory"&f=false), but that porbably won't help much.

Maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_transport, and the links from it, will help?