Dimensional regularization and the path-integral approach to photon mass in the Schwinger model

1989 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 515-518
Author(s):  
T. F. Treml

The derivation of the photon mass in the Schwinger model (two-dimensional quantum electrodynamics) is studied in a path-integral approach that employs a coordinate-space form of dimensional regularization. The role of the antisymmetric epsilon pseudotensor in dimensional regularization is briefly discussed. It is shown that the correct photon mass may easily be recovered by a dimensionally regularized calculation in which the epsilon pseudotensor is taken to be a purely two-dimensional quantity.

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (39) ◽  
pp. 2993-3001 ◽  
Author(s):  
USHA KULSHRESHTHA

We consider the vector Schwinger model (VSM) describing two-dimensional electrodynamics with massless fermions, where the left-handed and right-handed fermions are coupled to the electromagnetic field with equal couplings, with a mass term for the U(1) gauge field and then study its operator solutions and the Hamiltonian and path integral formulations. We emphasize here that although the VSM has been studied in the literature rather widely but only without a photon mass term (which was a consequence of demanding the regularization for the VSM to be gauge-invariant (GI)). The VSM with a photon mass term is seen to be a gauge-noninvariant (GNI) theory. Using the standard Stueckelberg formalism we then construct a GI theory corresponding to the proposed GNI model. From this reformulated GI theory, we further recover the physical contents of the proposed GNI theory under a very special gauge choice. The theory proposed and studied here presents a new class of models in the two-dimensional quantum electrodynamics with massless fermions but with a photon mass term.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 129-153
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Boyd

In Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED) the propagator is a function that describes the probability amplitude of a particle going from point A to B. It summarizes the many paths of Feynman’s path integral approach. We propose a reverse propagator (R-propagator) that, prior to the particle’s emission, summarizes every possible path from B to A. Wave function collapse occurs at point A when the particle randomly chooses one and only one of many incident paths to follow backwards with a probability of one, so it inevitably strikes detector B. The propagator and R-propagator both calculate the same probability amplitude. The R-propagator has an advantage over the propagator because it solves a contradiction inside QED, namely QED says a particle must take EVERY path from A to B. With our model the particle only takes one path. The R-propagator had already taken every path into account. We propose that this tiny, infinitesimal change from propagator to R-propagator would vastly simplify the mathematics of Nature. Many experiments that currently describe the quantum world as weird, change their meaning and no longer say that. The quantum world looks and acts like the classical world of everyday experience.


1990 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. F. Treml

The non-Abelian chiral anomaly for a fermion interacting with an external vector field in any even dimension and the conformal anomaly, in the limit of flat space–time, for a self-interacting scalar field are shown to be independent of temperature using a simple path-integral approach that employs dimensional regularization. The chiral anomaly is used as an example to show that the methods used to study the dimensionally regularized anomaly at finite temperature are readily transferable to the case of ζ-function regularization. The conformal anomaly in (super) string theory at finite temperature is briefly discussed in the light of known results. Some subtleties concerning the use of infrared cutoffs in a dimensionally regularized approach to the computation of the one-loop effective action at finite temperature are considered in an appendix.


1994 ◽  
Vol 09 (14) ◽  
pp. 1273-1281 ◽  
Author(s):  
JIAN-GE ZHOU ◽  
YAN-GANG MIAO ◽  
YAO-YANG LIU

A new covariant quantization of chiral bosons in the chiral Schwinger model with faddeevian regularization is carried out from Batalin-Fradkin (BF) algorithm. In order to turn the second class chiral constraint into first class constraints, infinitely many BF fields are first introduced. When combined with Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky (BFV) formalism, two kinds of BRST-invariant actions have been derived. The first contains the Wess-Zumino action induced from the usual path-integral approach. But the second includes Wotzasek’s Wess-Zumino action coupled to the gauge fields.


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