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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Space-Time Approach to Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

Richard Phillips Feynman
- 01 Apr 1948 - 
- Vol. 20, Iss: 2, pp 367-387
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TLDR
In this paper, the authors formulated non-relativistic quantum mechanics in a different way and showed that the probability of an event which can happen in several different ways is the absolute square of a sum of complex contributions, one from each alternative way.
Abstract
Non-relativistic quantum mechanics is formulated here in a different way. It is, however, mathematically equivalent to the familiar formulation. In quantum mechanics the probability of an event which can happen in several different ways is the absolute square of a sum of complex contributions, one from each alternative way. The probability that a particle will be found to have a path x(t) lying somewhere within a region of space time is the square of a sum of contributions, one from each path in the region. The contribution from a single path is postulated to be an exponential whose (imaginary) phase is the classical action (in units of ℏ) for the path in question. The total contribution from all paths reaching x, t from the past is the wave function ψ(x, t). This is shown to satisfy Schroedinger's equation. The relation to matrix and operator algebra is discussed. Applications are indicated, in particular to eliminate the coordinates of the field oscillators from the equations of quantum electrodynamics.

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Path integral method for quantum dissipative systems with dynamical friction: Applications to quantum dots/zero-dimensional nanocrystals

TL;DR: In this paper, a path integral approach for an isolated dynamical system which contains a moving body and its surrounding coupled to each other by a fractional dynamical friction force is constructed.
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Path integral approach to methyl group rotation

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Statistical theory of irrversible processes: Part I. Intergral over fluctuation path formulation

TL;DR: In this paper, the statistical theory of irreversible processes due to Onsager and Machlup is reformulated in terms of integrals over fluctuation paths, which closely parallels Feyman's space-time approach to quantum mechanics.