LINEAR WAVE EQUATIONS AND EFFECTIVE LAGRANGIANS FOR WIGNER SUPERMULTIPLETS

Abstract

The relevance of the contracted SU(4) group as a symmetry group of the pion-nucleon scattering amplitudes in the large Nc limit of QCD raises the problem of the construction of effective Lagrangians for SU(4) supermultiplets. In this study we suggest effective Lagrangians for self-conjugate representations of SU(4) in exploiting isomorphism between SO(6) and its universal covering SU(4). The model can be viewed as an extension of the linear σ model with SO(6) symmetry in place of SO(4) and generalizes the concept of the linear wave equations for particles with arbitrary spin. We show that the vector representation of SU(4) reduces on the SO(4) level to a complexified quaternion. Its real part gives rise to the standard linear σ model with a hedgehog configuration for the pion field, whereas the imaginary part describes vector meson degrees of freedom via purely transversal ρ mesons for which a helical field configuration is predicted. As a minimal model, baryonic states are suggested to appear as solitons of that quaternion.