{"paper":{"title":"Spin-weighted spherical harmonics as massless angular momentum eigenstates and their role in obstructing spin-orbital decompositions","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["hep-th","math.MP"],"primary_cat":"math-ph","authors_text":"Eric Palmerduca, Hong Qin","submitted_at":"2025-05-19T06:44:21Z","abstract_excerpt":"We show that for massless helicity $h$ particles, the angular momentum eigenstates are given in an appropriate coordinate system by the spin-weighted spherical harmonics ${_{-h}Y_{jm}}$ of spin-weight $-h$. In particular, these are simultaneous eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, helicity, $J^2$, and $J_z$. The appearance of the spin-weighted spherical harmonics as opposed to the ordinary spherical harmonics reflects the nontrivial topological structure of massless particles with nonzero helicity. The resultant angular momentum multiplet structure is quite different than that of massive particles,"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2505.12765","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2505.12765/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}