A scale-relativistic derivation of the Dirac Equation

Abstract

The application of the theory of scale relativity to microphysics aims at recovering quantum mechanics as a new non-classical mechanics on a non-derivable space-time. This program was already achieved as regards the Schr\"odinger and Klein Gordon equations, which have been derived in terms of geodesic equations in this framework: namely, they have been written according to a generalized equivalence/strong covariance principle in the form of free motion equations $D^2x/ds^2=0$, where $D/ds$ are covariant derivatives built from the description of the fractal/non-derivable geometry. Following the same line of thought and using the mathematical tool of Hamilton's bi-quaternions, we propose here a derivation of the Dirac equation also from a geodesic equation (while it is still merely postulated in standard quantum physics). The complex nature of the wave function in the Schr\"odinger and Klein-Gordon equations was deduced from the necessity to introduce, because of the non-derivability, a discrete symmetry breaking on the proper time differential element. By extension, the bi-quaternionic nature of the Dirac bi-spinors arises here from further discrete symmetry breakings on the space-time variables, which also proceed from non-derivability.Comment: 13 pages, accepted for publication in Electromagnetic Phenomena, Special issue dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the discovery of the Dirac equatio