I am searching for a sage/python based way of manipulating gamma matrices and trace calculation (Particle Physics). Basically, I am searching for a package/module that does what this
http://library.wolfram.com/infocenter...
package but does not dependent on Mathematica.
With the just-finished plural wrapper for Sage http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ti... you could also implement the (non-commutative) algebra of gamma matrices in an abstract way.
I don't have much experience with sage development, also I am not a mathematician as you may have guessed. But, I will try to see whether I can start developing a package for sage which does gamma matrix manipulation. Any suggestions or guidelines are most welcome.
Cool! As I mentioned before I am not very familiar with sage development, but I am quite familiar with Python/C++. Do you think its worth spending some time to implement a tracer like module for sage? I am not sure how difficult it is. But I think it would be useful. It pains me to see the amount of money being spent every year on buying Mathematica in my department and the reason people are reluctant to switch to sage is because they are not sure they can use packages like tracer. I have completely stopped using Mathematica for a few months now. Had to go back to Mathematica just because of trace calculations.
I don't know a good answer. But do you want to find a general package or you want to find a way to write something yourself? If latter, you may use explicit representations of Gamma matrices, for example, defined in 4d in Peskin's QFT book or in a general integer dimension in Polchinski's String theory book. In this case the gamma matrices are explicit matrices thus every calculation is straightforward.
On the other hand, if you want to do something more abstract, non-commutative rings (or groups?) may help. But currently I haven't fully understood Sage's construction about rings and groups yet.
As another suggestion, you may want to ask the question more explicitly. Otherwise only particle physicists could understand your question ;)
Asked: 2011-12-15 17:31:54 +0100
Seen: 2,171 times
Last updated: Dec 16 '11
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