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Concept
Four-momentum
Summary
In special relativity, four-momentum (also called momentum–energy or momenergy) is the generalization of the classical three-dimensional momentum to four-dimensional spacetime. Momentum is a vector in three dimensions; similarly four-momentum is a four-vector in spacetime. The contravariant four-momentum of a particle with relativistic energy E and three-momentum p = (px, py, pz) = γmv, where v is the particle's three-velocity and γ the Lorentz factor, is
The quantity mv of above is ordinary non-relativistic momentum of the particle and m its rest mass. The four-momentum is useful in relativistic calculations because it is a Lorentz covariant vector. This means that it is easy to keep track of how it transforms under Lorentz transformations.
The above definition applies under the coordinate convention that x0 = ct. Some authors use the convention x0 = t, which yields a modified definition with p0 = E/c2. It is also possible to define covariant four-momentum pμ where the sign of the energy (or the sign of the three-momentum, depending on the chosen metric signature) is reversed.
Calculating the Minkowski norm squared of the four-momentum gives a Lorentz invariant quantity equal (up to factors of the speed of light c) to the square of the particle's proper mass:
where
is the metric tensor of special relativity with metric signature for definiteness chosen to be (–1, 1, 1, 1). The negativity of the norm reflects that the momentum is a timelike four-vector for massive particles. The other choice of signature would flip signs in certain formulas (like for the norm here). This choice is not important, but once made it must for consistency be kept throughout.
The Minkowski norm is Lorentz invariant, meaning its value is not changed by Lorentz transformations/boosting into different frames of reference. More generally, for any two four-momenta p and q, the quantity p ⋅ q is invariant.
For a massive particle, the four-momentum is given by the particle's invariant mass m multiplied by the particle's four-velocity,
where the four-velocity u is
and
is the Lorentz factor (associated with the speed v), c is the speed of light.
Official source
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