The electromagnetic interaction of a massive spin one particle: some equivalence theorems and remarks

Abstract

The minimal electromagnetic interaction is introduced into various free, quantum mechanical spin one formalisms, and it is found that the resulting theories are essentially equivalent. The situation does not prevail when, in addition, magnetic dipole or electric quadrupole interactions are considered. For simple such interactions in one formalism are found, in general, to be equivalent to structurally more complicated interactions in the other formalisms considered. Some known results on the acausal propagation of solutions of wave equations for a classical spin one particle in an external electromagnetic field are, with the aid of the above equivalence theorems, which are easily seen to apply to the classical case also, extended to include all the spin one formalisms considered herein.