There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

To say that this is the best book on the quantum theory of fields is no praise, since to my knowledge it is the only book on this subject But it is a very good and most useful book The original was written in German and appeared in 1942 This is a translation with some minor changes A few remarks have been added, concerning meson theory and nuclear forces, also footnotes referring to modern work in this field, and finally an appendix on the symmetrization of the energy momentum tensor according to Belinfante Quantum Theory of Fields Prof Gregor Wentzel Translated from the German by Charlotte Houtermans and J M Jauch Pp ix + 224, (New York and London: Interscience Publishers, Inc, 1949) 36s

Quantum Theory of Fields

THE subject of quantum electrodynamics is extremely difficult, even for the case of a single electron. The usual method of solving the corresponding wave equation leads to divergent integrals. To avoid these, Prof. P. A. M. Dirac* uses the method of redundant variables. This does not abolish the difficulty, but presents it in a new form, which may be dealt with in two ways. The first of these needs only comparatively simple mathematics and is directly connected with an elegant general scheme, but unfortunately its wave functions apply only to a hypothetical world and so its physical interpretation is indirect. The second way has the advantage of a direct physical interpretation, but the mathematics is so complicated that it has not yet been solved even for what appears to be the simplest possible case. Both methods seem worth further study, failing the discovery of a third which would combine the advantages of both.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/3/22993/01069961.pdf

Quantum electrodynamics

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Resonant Leptogenesis

We show that the application of a novel gauge-invariant truncation scheme to the Schwinger-Dyson equations of QCD leads, in the Landau gauge, to an infrared finite gluon propagator and a divergent ghost propagator, in qualitative agreement with recent lattice data.

Gluon and ghost propagators in the Landau gauge: Deriving lattice results from Schwinger-Dyson equations

Bridging a gap between continuum-QCD and ab initio predictions of hadron observables

We study the nonperturbative behavior of two versions of the QCD effective charge, one obtained from the pinch technique gluon self-energy, and one from the ghost-gluon vertex. Despite their distinct theoretical origin, due to a fundamental identity relating various ingredients appearing in their respective definitions, the two effective charges are almost identical in the entire range of physical momenta, and coincide exactly in the deep infrared, where they freeze at a common finite value. Specifically, the dressing function of the ghost propagator is related to the two form factors in the Lorentz decomposition of a certain Green's function, appearing in a variety of field-theoretic contexts. The central identity, which is valid only in the Landau gauge, is derived from the Schwinger-Dyson equations governing the dynamics of the aforementioned quantities. The renormalization procedure that preserves the validity of the identity is carried out, and various relevant kinematic limits and physically motivated approximations are studied in detail. A crucial ingredient in this analysis is the infrared finiteness of the gluon propagator, which is inextricably connected with the aforementioned freezing of the effective charges. Some important issues related to the consistent definition of the effective charge in the presence of such a gluon propagator are resolved. We finally present a detailed numerical study of a special set of Schwinger-Dyson equations, whose solutions determine the nonperturbative dynamics of the quantities composing the two effective charges.

/pdf/nonperturbative-comparison-of-qcd-effective-charges-3j8lhr7ip3.pdf

Nonperturbative comparison of QCD effective charges

Ward-Green-Takahashi (WGT) identities play a crucial role in hadron physics, e.g. imposing stringent relationships between the kernels of the one- and two-body problems, which must be preserved in any veracious treatment of mesons as bound-states. In this connection, one may view the dressed gluon-quark vertex, $\Gamma_\mu^a$, as fundamental. We use a novel representation of $\Gamma_\mu^a$, in terms of the gluon-quark scattering matrix, to develop a method capable of elucidating the unique quark-antiquark Bethe-Salpeter kernel, $K$, that is symmetry-consistent with a given quark gap equation. A strength of the scheme is its ability to expose and capitalise on graphic symmetries within the kernels. This is displayed in an analysis that reveals the origin of $H$-diagrams in $K$, which are two-particle-irreducible contributions, generated as two-loop diagrams involving the three-gluon vertex, that cannot be absorbed as a dressing of $\Gamma_\mu^a$ in a Bethe-Salpeter kernel nor expressed as a member of the class of crossed-box diagrams. Thus, there are no general circumstances under which the WGT identities essential for a valid description of mesons can be preserved by a Bethe-Salpeter kernel obtained simply by dressing both gluon-quark vertices in a ladder-like truncation; and, moreover, adding any number of similarly-dressed crossed-box diagrams cannot improve the situation.

Symmetry preserving truncations of the gap and Bethe-Salpeter equations

In principle, the strong-interaction sector of the standard model is characterized by a unique renormalization-group-invariant (RGI) running interaction and a unique form for the dressed--gluon-quark vertex, ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$; but, whilst much has been learnt about the former, the latter is still obscure. In order to improve this situation, we use a RGI running-interaction that reconciles top-down and bottom-up analyses of the gauge sector in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) to compute dressed-quark gap equation solutions with 1,660,000 distinct Ans\"atze for ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$. Each one of the solutions is then tested for compatibility with three physical criteria and, remarkably, we find that merely 0.55% of the solutions survive the test. Evidently, even a small selection of observables places extremely tight bounds on the domain of realistic vertex Ans\"atze. This analysis and its results should prove useful in constraining insightful contemporary studies of QCD and hadronic phenomena.

Joannis Papavassiliou

Papers

Gluon and ghost propagators in the Landau gauge: Deriving lattice results from Schwinger-Dyson equations

Bridging a gap between continuum-QCD and ab initio predictions of hadron observables

Nonperturbative comparison of QCD effective charges

Symmetry preserving truncations of the gap and Bethe-Salpeter equations

Natural constraints on the gluon-quark vertex