Helmut Biritz (19XX-2017)

Professor Emeritus

Education

Ph. D., University of Vienna, 1962

Research

At Present the most successful phenomenological description of elementary particles is given by the "standard model". While fitting all presently available experimental data it contains far too many arbitrary parameters, dozens of them, to be much more than a stepping stone towards a more comprehensive theory of elementary particles; its role might be compared to that of the cycle-epicycle description of planetary motion before Kepler. There is room for improvement, as the standard model is an almost embarrasingly naive quantum field theory: Separate and simple fields are introduced for each of the particles in question (leptons, quarks, gluons,...) which are then coupled to give a Lorentz invariant Lagrangian.

Such an approach dates back to the early Stone Age of quantum field theory when only a few particles were known. Then it was natural to assume that only the most simple types of fields should be used for their theoretical description. Today experiment indicates an underlying multiplet structure of fundamental particles, and we are almost invariably led to wave functions that describe a whole spectrum of particles.

Some time ago Professor Biritz initiated a systematic investigation of more general types of wave equations and field operators. There is a large class of "regular" wave equations and fields that describe a whole spectrum of particles and which is free of all the difficulties usually associated with higher spin fields. At present, Professor Biritz is seeking to discover whether there is a natural way to incorporate massless particles like the photon and graviton into such regular fields and to rewrite the standard model in this new language.

Other Publications

1. H. Biritz and H. Pietschmann, "On the Isovector Charge Form Factor of the Nucleon in the Static Model", Proceedings of the Siena Conference on Elementary Particles, p. 403-405 (1963).
2. H. Biritz and H. Pietschmann, "Uber den Isovektor-Formfaktor des Nukleons im Statischen Modell", Acta Physica Austriaca 18, 252-254 (1964).
3. H. Biritz, "Strange Particles and Degenerate Vacuum", Nuovo Cimento 47, 581-588 (1967).
4. H. Biritz, "Relativistic Interactions and Reducible Representations of the Poincare Group", Nuovo Cimento 67 A 417-428 (1970).
5. H. Biritz, "On Localized States for Elementary Systems", Nuovo Cimento 6, A 175-202 (1971).
6. H. Biritz, "Graphical Calculus for Relativistic Wave Equations", Nuovo Cimento 25 B, 449-478 (1975).
7. H. Biritz, "How to Split Parity Doublets", Phys. Rev. D 11, 2862-2869 (1975).
8. H. Biritz, "Magnetic Moments for Particles Described by a Class of Relativistic Wave Equations", Phys. Rev. D 12, 2254-2265 (1975).
9. H. Biritz, "A Second Look at Relativistic Wave Equations", Acta Physica Austriaca Suppl. XIV, 549-565 (1975).
10. H. Biritz, "Consistent Wave Equations for Families of Massive Particles with Any Spin," Int. Journal of Theoret. Phys.18, 601-688 (1979).
11. A. N. Valle, "Causality of Regular Wave Equations in an External Field," Thesis, Georgia Tech (1985).
12. H. Biritz, "Inplicit Lorentz Transformations," Am. J. Phys.62, 937- 945 (1994).