On the Lorentz Transformations of Momentum and Energy

Abstract

Motivated by ultra-high-energy cosmic ray physics, we discuss all the possible alternatives to the familiar Lorentz transformations of the momentum and the energy of a particle. Starting from natural physical requirements, we exclude all the possibilities, apart from the ones which arise from the usual four-vector transformations by means of a change of coordinates in the mass-shell. This result confirms the remark, given in a preceding paper, that, in a theory without preferred inertial frames, one can always define a linearly transforming energy parameter to which the GZK cutoff argument can be applied. We also discuss the connections between the conservation and the transformation properties of energy-momentum and the relation between energy-momentum and velocity.

13 pages, LATEX, some references added, some minor points clarified, text divided into sections

References in corpus (2)

• Doubly-Special Relativity: First Results and Key Open Problems
• Particle velocity in noncommutative space-time

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