# Physics Using Geometric Algebra/Relativistic Classical Mechanics/Lorentz transformations

A Lorentz transformation is a linear transformation that maintains the length of paravectors. Lorentz transformations include rotations and boosts as proper Lorentz transformations and reflections and non-orthochronous transformations among the improper Lorentz transformations.
A proper Lorentz transformation can be written in spinorial form as
    $p\rightarrow p^{\prime }=LpL^{\dagger },$
where the spinor $L$ is subject to the condition of unimodularity
    $L{\bar {L}}=1$
In $Cl_{3}$, the spinor $L$ can be written as the exponential of a biparavector $W$
    $L_{_}=e^{W}$

## Rotation

If the biparavector $W$ contains only a bivector (complex vector in $Cl_{3}$), the Lorentz transformations is a rotation in the plane of the bivector
    $R=e^{-i{\frac {1}{2}}{\boldsymbol {\theta }}}$
for example, the following expression represents a rotor that applies a rotation angle $\theta$ around the direction $\mathbf {e} _{3}$ according to the right hand rule
    $R=e^{-{\frac {\theta }{2}}\mathbf {e} _{12}}=e^{-i{\frac {\theta }{2}}\mathbf {e} _{3}},$
applying this rotor to the unit vector along $\mathbf {e} _{1}$ gives the expected result
    $\mathbf {e} _{1}\rightarrow e^{-i{\frac {\theta }{2}}\mathbf {e} _{3}}\mathbf {e} _{1}e^{i{\frac {\theta }{2}}\mathbf {e} _{3}}=\mathbf {e} _{1}e^{i{\frac {\theta }{2}}\mathbf {e} _{3}}e^{i{\frac {\theta }{2}}\mathbf {e} _{3}}=\mathbf {e} _{1}e^{i\theta \mathbf {e} _{3}}=\mathbf {e} _{1}(\cos(\theta )+i\mathbf {e} _{3}\sin(\theta ))=\mathbf {e} _{1}\cos(\theta )+\mathbf {e} _{2}\sin(\theta )$
The rotor $R$ has two fundamental properties. It is said to be unimodular and unitary, such that
* Unimodular: $R{\bar {R}}=1$
* Unitary: $RR^{\dagger }=1$
In the case of rotors, the bar conjugation and the reversion have the same effect
    ${\bar {R}}=R^{\dagger }.$

## Boost

If the biparavector $W$ contains only a real vector, the Lorentz transformation is a boost along the direction of the respective vector
    $R=e^{{\frac {1}{2}}{\boldsymbol {\eta }}}$
for example, the following expression represents a boost along the $\mathbf {e} _{3}$ direction
    $B=e^{{\frac {1}{2}}\eta \,\mathbf {e} _{3}},$
where the real scalar parameter $\eta$ is the rapidity.
The boost $B$ is seen to be:
* Unimodular: $B{\bar {B}}=1$
* Real: $B^{\dagger }=B$

## The Lorentz transformation as a composition of a rotation and a boost

In general, the spinor of the proper Lorentz transformation can be written as the product of a boost and a rotor
    $L_{_}=BR$
The boost factor can be extracted as
    $B={\sqrt {LL^{\dagger }}}$
and the rotor is obtained from the even grades of $L$
    $R={\frac {L+{\bar {L}}^{\dagger }}{2\langle B\rangle _{S}}}$

## Boost in terms of the required proper velocity

The proper velocity of a particle at rest is equal to one
    $u_{r_}=1$
Any proper velocity, at least instantaneously, can be obtained from an active Lorentz transformation from the particle at rest, such that
    $u=Lu_{r_}L^{\dagger },$
that can be written as
    $u=LL^{\dagger }=BR(BR)^{\dagger }=BRR^{\dagger }B^{\dagger }=BB=B^{2},$
so that
    $B={\sqrt {u}}={\frac {1+u}{\sqrt {2(1+\langle u\rangle _{S})}}},$
where the explicit formula of the square root for a unit length paravector was used.

## Rapidity and velocity

The proper velocity is the square of the boost
    $u=B^{2^},$
so that
    $\gamma (1+{\frac {\mathbf {v} }{c}})=e^{\boldsymbol {\eta }},$
rewriting the rapidity in terms of the product of its magnitude and respective unit vector
    ${\boldsymbol {\eta }}=\eta {\hat {\boldsymbol {\eta }}}$
the exponential can be expanded as
    $\gamma +\gamma {\frac {\mathbf {v} }{c}}=\cosh(\eta )+{\hat {\boldsymbol {\eta }}}\sinh(\eta ),$
so that
    $\gamma _{_}=\cosh {\eta }$
and
    $\gamma {\frac {\mathbf {v} }{c}}={\hat {\boldsymbol {\eta }}}\sinh(\eta ),$
where we see that in the non-relativistic limit the rapidity becomes the velocity divided by the speed of light
    ${\frac {\mathbf {v} }{c}}={\hat {\boldsymbol {\eta }}}\eta$

## Lorentz transformation applied to biparavectors

The Lorentz transformation applied to biparavector has a different form from the Lorentz transformation applied to paravectors. Considering a general biparavector written in terms of paravectors
    $\langle u{\bar {v}}\rangle _{V}\rightarrow \langle u^{\prime }{\bar {v}}^{\prime }\rangle _{V}$
applying the Lorentz transformation to the component paravectors
    $\langle u^{\prime }{\bar {v}}^{\prime }\rangle _{V}=\langle LuL^{\dagger }\,\,{\overline {LvL^{\dagger }}}\rangle _{V}=\langle LuL^{\dagger }\,{\bar {L}}^{\dagger }{\bar {v}}{\bar {L}}\rangle _{V}=\langle Lu{\bar {v}}{\bar {L}}\rangle _{V}=L\langle u{\bar {v}}\rangle _{V}{\bar {L}},$
so that if $F$ is a biparavector, the Lorentz transformations is given by
    $F\rightarrow F^{\prime _}=LF{\bar {L}}$