Particle Polarization, Spin Tensor, and the Wigner Distribution in Relativistic Systems

Abstract

Particle spin polarization is known to be linked both to rotation (angular momentum) and magnetization of many particle systems. However, in the most common formulation of relativistic kinetic theory, the spin degrees of freedom appear only as degeneracy factors multiplying phase-space distributions. Thus, it is important to develop theoretical tools that allow to make predictions regarding the spin polarization of particles, which can be directly confronted with experimental data. Herein, we discuss a link between the relativistic spin tensor and particle spin polarization, and elucidate the connections between the Wigner function and average polarization. Our results may be useful for the theoretical interpretation of heavy-ion data on spin polarization of the produced hadrons.