Quantum eld theory

Relativistic quantum eld theory redirects here. For

other uses, see Relativity.

In theoretical physics, quantum eld theory (QFT) is

the theoretical framework for constructing quantum me-
chanical models of subatomic particles in particle physics
and quasiparticles in condensed matter physics. QFT
treats particles as excited states of the underlying physical
eld, so these are called eld quanta.
In quantum eld theory, quantum mechanical inter-
actions among particles are described by interaction
terms among the corresponding underlying quantum
elds. These interactions are conveniently visualized by
Feynman diagrams, which are a formal tool of relativis-
tically covariant perturbation theory, serving to evaluate
particle processes.

1 History
Main article: History of quantum eld theory

Even though QFT is an unavoidable consequence of the Max Born (18821970), one of the founders of quantum eld
reconciliation of quantum mechanics with special rel- theory.
He is also known for the Born rule that introduced the probabilis-
ativity (Weinberg (1995)), historically, it emerged in
tic interpretation in quantum mechanics. He received the 1954
the 1920s with the quantization of the electromagnetic
Nobel Prize in Physics together with Walther Bothe.
eld (the quantization being based on an analogy of the
eigenmode expansion of a vibrating string with xed end-
points).
interaction of radiation and matter and thus should be
treated by quantum eld theoretical methods. However,
1.1 Early development quantum mechanics as formulated by Dirac, Heisenberg,
and Schrdinger in 192627 started from atomic spectra
The rst achievement of quantum eld theory, namely and did not focus much on problems of radiation.
quantum electrodynamics (QED), is still the paradig-
matic example of a successful quantum eld theory As soon as the conceptual framework of quantum me-
(Weinberg (1995)). Ordinarily, quantum mechanics chanics was developed, a small group of theoreticians
(QM) cannot give an account of photons which consti- tried to extend quantum methods to electromagnetic
tute the prime case of relativistic 'particles. Since pho- elds. A good example is the famous paper by Born,
tons have rest mass zero, and correspondingly travel in the Jordan & Heisenberg (1926). (P. Jordan was especially
vacuum at the speed c, a non-relativistic theory such as acquainted with the literature on light quanta and made
ordinary QM cannot give even an approximate descrip- seminal contributions to QFT.) The basic idea was that
tion. Photons are implicit in the emission and absorp- in QFT the electromagnetic eld should be represented
tion processes which have to be postulated; for instance, by matrices in the same way that position and momen-
when one of an atoms electrons makes a transition be- tum were represented in QM by matrices (matrix me-
tween energy levels. The formalism of QFT is needed chanics oscillator operators). The ideas of QM were thus
for an explicit description of photons. In fact most top- extended to systems having an innite number of degrees
ics in the early development of quantum theory (the so- of freedom, so an innite array of quantum oscillators.
called old quantum theory, 190025) were related to the The inception of QFT is usually considered to be Diracs

1
2 1 HISTORY

famous 1927 paper on The quantum theory of the emis- 1.2.1 The emergence of innities
sion and absorption of radiation.[1] Here Dirac coined
the name quantum electrodynamics (QED) for the part
of QFT that was developed rst. Dirac supplied a system-
atic procedure for transferring the characteristic quantum
phenomenon of discreteness of physical quantities from
the quantum-mechanical treatment of particles to a cor-
responding treatment of elds. Employing the theory of
the quantum harmonic oscillator, Dirac gave a theoretical
description of how photons appear in the quantization of
the electromagnetic radiation eld. Later, Diracs proce-
dure became a model for the quantization of other elds
as well. These rst approaches to QFT were further de-
veloped during the following three years. P. Jordan intro-
duced creation and annihilation operators for elds obey-
ing FermiDirac statistics. These dier from the corre-
sponding operators for BoseEinstein statistics in that the
former satisfy anti-commutation relations while the latter
satisfy commutation relations.
The methods of QFT could be applied to derive equa-
tions resulting from the quantum-mechanical (eld-like)
treatment of particles, e.g. the Dirac equation, the Klein
Gordon equation and the Maxwell equations. Schweber
points out[2] that the idea and procedure of second quan-
tization goes back to Jordan, in a number of papers from
1927,[3] while the expression itself was coined by Dirac.
Some dicult problems concerning commutation rela-
tions, statistics, and Lorentz invariance were eventually Pascual Jordan (19021980), doctoral student of Max Born,
solved. The rst comprehensive account of a general the- was a pioneer in quantum eld theory, coauthoring a number
ory of quantum elds, in particular, the method of canon- of seminal papers with Born and Heisenberg.
ical quantization, was presented by Heisenberg & Pauli in Jordan algebras were introduced by him to formalize the notion
192930.[4][5] Whereas Jordans second quantization pro- of an algebra of observables in quantum mechanics. He was
cedure applied to the coecients of the normal modes awarded the Max Planck medal 1954.
of the eld, Heisenberg & Pauli started with the elds
themselves and subjected them to the canonical proce- Quantum eld theory started with a theoretical frame-
dure. Heisenberg and Pauli thus established the basic work that was built in analogy to quantum mechanics. Al-
structure of QFT as presented in modern introductions though there was no unique and fully developed theory,
to QFT. Fermi and Dirac, as well as Fock and Podolsky, quantum eld theoretical tools could be applied to con-
presented dierent formulations which played a heuristic crete processes. Examples are the scattering of radiation
role in the following years. by free electrons, Compton scattering, the collision be-
tween relativistic electrons or the production of electron-
Quantum electrodynamics rests on two pillars, see e.g., positron pairs by photons. Calculations to the rst order
the short and lucid Historical Introduction of Scharf of approximation were quite successful, but most peo-
(2014). The rst pillar is the quantization of the elec- ple working in the eld thought that QFT still had to un-
tromagnetic eld, i.e., it is about photons as the quan- dergo a major change. On the one side, some calculations
tized excitations or 'quanta' of the electromagnetic eld. of eects for cosmic rays clearly diered from measure-
This procedure will be described in some more detail in ments. On the other side and, from a theoretical point
the section on the particle interpretation. As Weinberg of view more threatening, calculations of higher orders
points out the photon is the only particle that was known of the perturbation series led to innite results. The self-
as a eld before it was detected as a particle so that it energy of the electron as well as vacuum uctuations of
is natural that QED began with the analysis of the radi- the electromagnetic eld seemed to be innite. The per-
ation eld.[6] The second pillar of QED consists of the turbation expansions did not converge to a nite sum and
relativistic theory of the electron, centered on the Dirac even most individual terms were divergent.
equation.
The various forms of innities suggested that the diver-
gences were more than failures of specic calculations.
Many physicists tried to avoid the divergences by formal
1.2 The problem of innities tricks (truncating the integrals at some value of momen-
tum, or even ignoring innite terms) but such rules were
1.2 The problem of innities 3

not reliable, violated the requirements of relativity and

were not considered as satisfactory. Others came up with
the rst ideas for coping with innities by a redenition
of the parameters of the theory and using a measured -
nite value, for example of the charge of the electron, in-
stead of the innite 'bare' value. This process is called
renormalization.
From the point of view of the philosophy of science, it
is remarkable that these divergences did not give enough
reason to discard the theory. The years from 1930 to the
beginning of World War II were characterized by a vari-
ety of attitudes towards QFT. Some physicists tried to cir-
cumvent the innities by more-or-less arbitrary prescrip-
tions, others worked on transformations and improve-
ments of the theoretical framework. Most of the theo-
reticians believed that QED would break down at high
energies. There was also a considerable number of pro-
posals in favor of alternative approaches. These propos-
als included changes in the basic concepts e.g. negative
probabilities and interactions at a distance instead of a
eld theoretical approach, and a methodological change
to phenomenological methods that focusses on relations
between observable quantities without an analysis of the
microphysical details of the interaction, the so-called S-
matrix theory where the basic elements are amplitudes
for various scattering processes.
Despite the feeling that QFT was imperfect and lacking
rigor, its methods were extended to new areas of applica-
tions. In 1933 Fermis theory of the beta decay[7] started Werner Heisenberg (19011976), doctoral student of Arnold
with conceptions describing the emission and absorption Sommerfeld, was one of the founding fathers of quantum me-
of photons, transferred them to beta radiation and ana- chanics and QFT.
lyzed the creation and annihilation of electrons and neu- In particular, he introduced the version of quantum mechanics
known as matrix mechanics, but is now more known for the
trinos described by the weak interaction. Further appli-
Heisenberg uncertainty relations. He was awarded the Nobel
cations of QFT outside of quantum electrodynamics suc-
prize in physics 1932.
ceeded in nuclear physics with the strong interaction. In
1934 Pauli & Weisskopf showed that a new type of eld
(the scalar eld), described by the KleinGordon equa- In 1949, Freeman Dyson showed that the two ap-
tion, could be quantized.[8] This is another example of proaches are in fact equivalent and t into an elegant
second quantization. This new theory for matter elds eld-theoretic framework. Thus, Freeman Dyson, Feyn-
could be applied a decade later when new particles, pions, man, Schwinger, and Tomonaga became the inventors
were detected. of renormalization theory. The most spectacular suc-
cesses of renormalization theory were the calculations
of the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron and
1.2.2 The taming of innities
the Lamb shift in the spectrum of hydrogen. These suc-
After the end of World War II more reliable and eective cesses were so outstanding because the theoretical results
methods for dealing with innities in QFT were devel- were in better agreement with high-precision experiments
oped, namely coherent and systematic rules for perform- than anything in physics encountered before. Neverthe-
ing relativistic eld theoretical calculations, and a general less, mathematical problems lingered on and prompted a
renormalization theory. At three famous conferences, the search for rigorous formulations (discussed below).
Shelter Island Conference 1947, the Pocono Conference The rationale behind renormalization is to avoid diver-
1948, and the 1949 Oldstone Conference, developments gences that appear in physical predictions by shifting
in theoretical physics were confronted with relevant new them into a part of the theory where they do not inuence
experimental results. In the late forties, there were two empirical statements. Dyson could show that a rescaling
dierent ways to address the problem of divergences. of charge and mass ('renormalization') is sucient to re-
One of these was discovered by Richard Feynman, the move all divergences in QED consistently, to all orders
other one (based on an operator formalism) by Julian of perturbation theory. A QFT is called renormalizable
Schwinger and, independently, by Shin'ichir Tomonaga. if all innities can be absorbed into a redenition of a
4 1 HISTORY

nite number of coupling constants and masses. A con-
sequence for QED is that the physical charge and mass of
the electron must be measured and cannot be computed
from rst principles.
Perturbation theory yields well-dened predictions only
in renormalizable quantum eld theories; luckily, QED,
the rst fully developed QFT, belonged to this class of
renormalizable theories. There are various technical pro-
cedures to renormalize a theory. One way is to cut o
the integrals in the calculations at a certain value of the
momentum which is large but nite. This cut-o proce-
dure is successful if, after taking the limit , the The idea of particles traveling from one point to another
resulting quantities are independent of .[9]
visualize the various terms in the perturbation series, and
they naturally account for the ow of electrons and pho-
tons during the scattering process. External lines in the
diagrams represent incoming and outgoing particles, in-
ternal lines are connected with virtual particles and ver-
tices with interactions. Each of these graphical elements
is associated with mathematical expressions that con-
tribute to the amplitude of the respective process. The
diagrams are part of Feynmans very ecient and elegant
algorithm for computing the probability of scattering pro-
cesses.
was heuristically useful in constructing the theory. This
heuristics, based on Huygens principle, is useful for con-
crete calculations and actually give the correct particle
propagators as derived more rigorously.[11] Nevertheless,
an analysis of the theoretical justication of the space-
time approach shows that its success does not imply that
particle paths need be taken seriously. General arguments
against a particle interpretation of QFT clearly exclude
that the diagrams represent actual paths of particles in
the interaction area. Feynman himself was not particu-
larly interested in ontological questions.

1.3 The golden age: gauge theory and the

standard model

Richard Feynman (19181988)

His 1945 PhD thesis developed the path integral formulation of
ordinary quantum mechanics. This was later generalized to eld
theory.

Feynmans formulation of QED is of special interest

from a philosophical point of view. His so-called space- Chen-Ning Yang (b. 1922), co-inventor of nonabelian gauge
time approach is visualized by the celebrated Feynman eld theories.
diagrams that look like depicting paths of particles.
Feynmans method of calculating scattering amplitudesIn 1933, Enrico Fermi had already established that the
is based on the functional integral formulation of eld
creation, annihilation and transmutation of particles in
theory.[10] A set of graphical rules can be derived so that
the weak interaction beta decay could best be described
the probability of a specic scattering process can be cal-
in QFT,[12] specically his quartic fermion interaction.
culated by drawing a diagram of that process and then us-
As a result, eld theory had become a prospective tool
ing that diagram to write down the precise mathematical
for other particle interactions. In the beginning of the
expressions for calculating its amplitude in relativistically
1950s, QED had become a reliable theory which no
covariant perturbation theory. longer counted as preliminary. However, it took two
The diagrams provide an eective way to organize and decades from writing down the rst equations until QFT
1.3 The golden age: gauge theory and the standard model 5

Murray Gell-Mann (b. 1929) articulator and pioneer of group

symmetry in QFT

could be applied successfully to important physical prob- Yoichiro Nambu (19212015), co-discoverer of eld theoretic
lems in a systematic way. spontaneous symmetry breaking.

The theories explored relied onindeed, were virtu-

ally fully specied bya rich variety of symmetries pio-
neered and articulated by Murray Gell-Mann.[13] The new
developments made it possible to apply QFT to new parti-
cles and new interactions and fully explain their structure.
In the following decades, QFT was extended to well-
describe not only the electromagnetic force but also weak
and strong interaction so that new Lagrangians were
found which contain new classes of particles or quantum
elds. The search still continues for a more comprehen-
sive theory of matter and energy, a unied theory of all
interactions.
The new focus on symmetry led to the triumph of non-
Abelian gauge theories (the development of such theories
was pioneered in 195460 with the work of Yang and
Mills;[14] see YangMills theory) and spontaneous sym-
metry breaking (by Yoichiro Nambu).[15] Today, there
are reliable theories of the strong, weak, and electro-
magnetic interactions of elementary particles which have
an analogous structure to QED: They are the dominant
framework of particle physics.
A combined renormalizable theory associated with the
gauge group SU(3) SU(2) U(1) is dubbed the stan-
dard model of elementary particle physics (even though
Gerard 't Hooft (b.1946) proved gauge eld theories are renor-
it is a full theory, and not just a model) and was assem-
malizable.
bled by Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg and Abdus
Salam in 195967 (see Electroweak unication), and
Frank Wilczek, David Gross and David Politzer in 1973 neutrino) and six types of quarks, where the members of
(see Asymptotic freedom), on the basis of conceptual both groups are all fermions with spin 1/2. On the other
breakthroughs by Peter Higgs, Franois Englert, Robert hand, there are spin 1 particles (thus bosons) that mediate
Brout, Martin Veltman, and Gerard 't Hooft. the interaction between elementary particles and the fun-
According to the standard model, there are, on the one damental forces, namely the photon for electromagnetic
hand, six types of leptons (e.g. the electron and its interaction, two W and one Z-boson for weak interaction,
6 3 DEFINITION

and the gluons for strong interaction. [16] The linchpin of 2 Varieties of approaches
the symmetry breaking mechanism of the theory is the
spin 0 Higgs boson, discovered 40 years after its predic-
tion.
1.4 Renormalization group
Main article: History of renormalization group theory
Most theories in standard particle physics are formu-
lated as relativistic quantum eld theories, such as QED,
QCD, and the Standard Model. QED, the quantum eld-
theoretic description of the electromagnetic eld, approx-
imately reproduces Maxwell's theory of electrodynamics
in the low-energy limit, with small non-linear corrections
to the Maxwell equations required due to virtual electron
positron pairs.

Parallel breakthroughs in the understanding of phase

transitions in condensed matter physics led to novel in- 2.1 Perturbative and non-perturbative ap-
sights based on the renormalization group. They emerged proaches
in the work of Leo Kadano (1966)[17] and Kenneth Ged-
des Wilson & Michael Fisher (1972)[18] extending the In the perturbative approach to quantum eld theory,
work of Ernst StueckelbergAndr Petermann (1953)[19] the full eld interaction terms are approximated as a
and Murray Gell-MannFrancis Low (1954)[20] which perturbative expansion in the number of particles in-
led to the seminal reformulation of quantum eld the- volved. Each term in the expansion can be thought of
ory by Kenneth Geddes Wilson in 1975.[21] This refor- as forces between particles being mediated by other par-
mulation provided insights into the evolution of eective ticles. In QED, the electromagnetic force between two
eld theories with scale, which classied all eld theories,electrons is caused by an exchange of photons. Simi-
renormalizable or not (cf. subsequent section). The re- larly, intermediate vector bosons mediate the weak force
markable conclusion is that, in general, most observables and gluons mediate the strong force in QCD. The notion
are irrelevant, i.e., the macroscopic physics is domi- of a force-mediating particle comes from perturbation
nated by only a few observables in most systems. theory, and does not make sense in the context of non-
During the same period, Kadano (1969)[22] introduced perturbative approaches to QFT, such as with bound
an operator algebra formalism for the two-dimensional states.
Ising model, a widely studied mathematical model of
ferromagnetism in statistical physics. This development
suggested that quantum eld theory describes its scaling
2.2 QFT and gravity
limit. Later, there developed the idea that a nite number
of generating operators could represent all the correlation
functions of the Ising model. There is currently no complete quantum theory of the
remaining fundamental force, gravity. Many of the
proposed theories to describe gravity as a QFT postu-
late the existence of a graviton particle that mediates the
gravitational force. Presumably, the as yet unknown cor-
1.4.1 Conformal eld theory
rect quantum eld-theoretic treatment of the gravitational
eld will behave like Einsteins general theory of relativ-
The existence of a much stronger symmetry for the scal- ity in the low-energy limit. Quantum eld theory of the
ing limit of two-dimensional critical systems was sug- fundamental forces itself has been postulated to be the
gested by Alexander Belavin, Alexander Polyakov and low-energy eective eld theory limit of a more funda-
Alexander Zamolodchikov in 1984, which eventually led mental theory such as superstring theory.
to the development of conformal eld theory,[23][24] a spe-
cial case of quantum eld theory, which is presently uti-
lized in dierent areas of particle physics and condensed
matter physics. 3 Denition

Quantum electrodynamics (QED) has one electron eld

and one photon eld; quantum chromodynamics (QCD)
1.5 Historiography has one eld for each type of quark; and, in con-
densed matter, there is an atomic displacement eld that
The rst chapter in Weinberg (1995) is a very good short gives rise to phonon particles. Edward Witten describes
description of the earlier history of QFT. A detailed ac- QFT as by far the most dicult theory in modern
count of the historical development of QFT can be found physics[25] so dicult that nobody fully believed it for
in Schweber (1994). 25 years.[26]
4.1 Classical and quantum elds
3.1 Dynamics
See also: Relativistic dynamics
Ordinary quantum mechanical systems have a xed num-
ber of particles, with each particle having a nite number
of degrees of freedom. In contrast, the excited states of
a quantum eld can represent any number of particles.
This makes quantum eld theories especially useful for
describing systems where the particle count/number may
change over time, a crucial feature of relativistic dynam-
ics. A QFT is thus an organized innite array of oscilla-
tors.
3.2 States
QFT interaction terms are similar in spirit to those
between charges with electric and magnetic elds in
Maxwells equations. However, unlike the classical elds
of Maxwells theory, elds in QFT generally exist in
quantum superpositions of states and are subject to the
laws of quantum mechanics.
Because the elds are continuous quantities over space,
there exist excited states with arbitrarily large numbers
of particles in them, providing QFT systems with eec-
tively an innite number of degrees of freedom. Innite
degrees of freedom can easily lead to divergences of cal-
culated quantities (e.g., the quantities become innite).
Techniques such as renormalization of QFT parameters
or discretization of spacetime, as in lattice QCD, are of-
ten used to avoid such innities so as to yield physically
plausible results.
3.3 Fields and radiation
The gravitational eld and the electromagnetic eld are
the only two fundamental elds in nature that have in-
nite range and a corresponding classical low-energy limit,
which greatly diminishes and hides their particle-like
excitations. Albert Einstein in 1905, attributed particle-
like and discrete exchanges of momenta and energy,
characteristic of eld quanta, to the electromagnetic
eld. Originally, his principal motivation was to ex-
plain the thermodynamics of radiation. Although the
photoelectric eect and Compton scattering strongly sug-
gest the existence of the photon, it might alternatively
be explained by a mere quantization of emission; more
denitive evidence of the quantum nature of radiation
is now taken up into modern quantum optics as in the
antibunching eect.[27]
4 Principles
7
4.1 Classical and quantum elds
Main article: Classical eld theory
A classical eld is a function dened over some region
of space and time.[28] Two physical phenomena which
are described by classical elds are Newtonian gravita-
tion, described by Newtonian gravitational eld g(x, t),
and classical electromagnetism, described by the electric
and magnetic elds E(x, t) and B(x, t). Because such
elds can in principle take on distinct values at each point
in space, they are said to have innite degrees of free-
dom.[28]
Classical eld theory does not, however, account for the
quantum-mechanical aspects of such physical phenom-
ena. For instance, it is known from quantum mechanics
that certain aspects of electromagnetism involve discrete
particlesphotonsrather than continuous elds. The
business of quantum eld theory is to write down a eld
that is, like a classical eld, a function dened over space
and time, but which also accommodates the observations
of quantum mechanics. This is a quantum eld.
To write down such a quantum eld, one promotes the
innity of classical oscillators representing the modes
of the classical elds to quantum harmonic oscillators.
They thus become operator-valued functions (actually,
distributions).[29] (In its most general formulation, quan-
tum mechanics is a theory of abstract operators (observ-
ables) acting on an abstract state space (Hilbert space),
where the observables represent physically observable
quantities and the state space represents the possible
states of the system under study.[30] For instance, the
fundamental observables associated with the motion of a
single quantum mechanical particle are the position and
momentum operators x and p . Field theory, by sharp
contrast, treats x as a label, an index of the eld rather
than as an operator.[31] )
There are two common ways of handling a quantum
eld: canonical quantization and the path integral formal-
ism.[32] The latter of these is pursued in this article.
4.1.1 Lagrangian formalism
Quantum eld theory relies on the Lagrangian formalism
from classical eld theory. This formalism is analogous
to the Lagrangian formalism used in classical mechan-
ics to solve for the motion of a particle under the inu-
ence of a eld. In classical eld theory, one writes down
a Lagrangian density, L , involving a eld, (x,t), and
possibly its rst derivatives (/t and ), and then ap-
plies a eld-theoretic form of the EulerLagrange equa-
tion. Writing coordinates (t, x) = (x0 , x1 , x2 , x3 ) = x ,
this form of the EulerLagrange equation is[28]
8 4 PRINCIPLES

value of the particles momentum is found by integrating

[ ] i* (x)d/dx. The quantity * (x)(x) is itself in the
L L
= 0, Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics inter-
x (/x ) preted as a probability density function. This treatment
where a sum over is performed according to the rules of quantum mechanics, where a particles wavefunction
of Einstein notation. evolves against a classical background potential V(x), is
sometimes called rst quantization.
By solving this equation, one arrives at the equations of
motion of the eld.[28] For example, if one begins with This description of quantum mechanics can be extended
the Lagrangian density to describe the behavior of multiple particles, so long as
the number and the type of particles remain xed. The
particles are described by a wavefunction (x1 , x2 , ,
1 xN, t), which is governed by an extended version of the
L(, ) = (t, x) (t, x) ||2 , Schrdinger equation.
8G
and then applies the EulerLagrange equation, one ob- Often one is interested in the case where N particles are
tains the equation of motion all of the same type (for example, the 18 electrons orbit-
ing a neutral argon nucleus). As described in the article on
identical particles, this implies that the state of the entire
system must be either symmetric (bosons) or antisymmet-
4G(t, x) = 2 .
ric (fermions) when the coordinates of its constituent par-
This equation is Newtons law of universal gravitation, ticles are exchanged. This is achieved by using a Slater
expressed in dierential form in terms of the gravitational determinant as the wavefunction of a fermionic system
potential (t, x) and the mass density (t, x). Despite the (and a Slater permanent for a bosonic system), which is
nomenclature, the eld under study is the gravitational equivalent to an element of the symmetric or antisymmet-
potential, , rather than the gravitational eld, g. Simi- ric subspace of a tensor product.
larly, when classical eld theory is used to study electro- For example, the general quantum state of a system of N
magnetism, the eld of interest is the electromagnetic bosons is written as
four-potential (V/c, A), rather than the electric and mag-
netic elds E and B.

Quantum eld theory uses this same Lagrangian proce-
j Nj !
dure to determine the equations of motion for quantum |1 N = |p(1) |p(N ) ,
elds. These equations of motion are then supplemented N!
pSN
by commutation relations derived from the canonical
quantization procedure described below, thereby incor- where |i are the single-particle states, Nj is the number
porating quantum mechanical eects into the behavior of particles occupying state j, and the sum is taken over all
of the eld. possible permutations p acting on N elements. Ingeneral,

Nj !
this is a sum of N! (N factorial) distinct terms. j
N!
4.2 Single- and many-particle quantum is a normalizing factor.
mechanics There are several shortcomings to the above description
of quantum mechanics, which are addressed by quantum
Main articles: Quantum mechanics and First quantization eld theory. First, it is unclear how to extend quantum
mechanics to include the eects of special relativity.[33]
Attempted replacements for the Schrdinger equation,
In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, a particle (such
such as the KleinGordon equation or the Dirac equation,
as an electron or proton) is described by a complex
have many unsatisfactory qualities; for instance, they pos-
wavefunction, (x, t), whose time-evolution is governed
sess energy eigenvalues that extend to , so that there
by the Schrdinger equation:
seems to be no easy denition of a ground state. It turns
out that such inconsistencies arise from relativistic wave-

2 2
functions not having a well-dened probabilistic interpre-
(x, t) + V (x)(x, t) = i (x, t). tation in position space, as probability conservation is not
2m x2 t
a relativistically covariant concept. The second short-
Here m is the particles mass and V(x) is the applied coming, related to the rst, is that in quantum mechanics
potential. Physical information about the behavior of the there is no mechanism to describe particle creation and
particle is extracted from the wavefunction by construct- annihilation;[34] this is crucial for describing phenomena
ing expected values for various quantities; for example, such as pair production, which result from the conversion
the expected value of the particles position is given by between mass and energy according to the relativistic re-
integrating * (x) x (x) over all space, and the expected lation E = mc2 .
4.3 Second quantization 9

4.3 Second quantization a number j indicating which of the single-particle states

|1 , |2 , . . . , |j , . . . it refers to:
Main article: Second quantization

In this section, we will describe a method for constructing |N1 , N2 , N3 , . . . , Nj , . . . .

a quantum eld theory called second quantization. This The properties of this quantum eld can be explored by
basically involves choosing a way to index the quantum dening creation and annihilation operators, which add
mechanical degrees of freedom in the space of multiple and subtract particles. They are analogous to ladder oper-
identical-particle states. It is based on the Hamiltonian ators in the quantum harmonic oscillator problem, which
formulation of quantum mechanics. added and subtracted energy quanta. However, these op-
Several other approaches exist, such as the Feynman path erators literally create and annihilate particles of a given
integral,[35] which uses a Lagrangian formulation. For an quantum state. Thebosonic annihilation operator a2 and
overview of some of these approaches, see the article on creation operator a2 are easily dened in the occupation
quantization. number representation as having the following eects:

4.3.1 Bosons a2 |N1 , N2 , N3 , . . . = N2 | N1 , (N2 1), N3 , . . . ,


For simplicity, we will rst discuss second quantiza- a2 |N1 , N2 , N3 , . . . = N2 + 1 | N1 , (N2 +1), N3 , . . . .
tion for bosons, which form perfectly symmetric quan- It can be shown that these are operators in the usual quan-
tum states. Let us denote the mutually orthogonal tum mechanical sense, i.e. linear operators acting on
single-particle states which are possible in the system by the Fock space. Furthermore, they are indeed Hermitian
|1 , |2 , |3 , and so on. For example, the 3-particle conjugates, which justies the way we have written them.
state with one particle in state |1 and two in state |2 They can be shown to obey the commutation relation
is
[ ] [ ]
[ai , aj ] = 0 , ai , aj = 0 , ai , aj = ij ,
1
[|1 |2 |2 + |2 |1 |2 + |2 |2 |1 ] .
3 where stands for the Kronecker delta. These are pre-
cisely the relations obeyed by the ladder operators for an
The rst step in second quantization is to express such innite set of independent quantum harmonic oscillators,
quantum states in terms of occupation numbers, by list- one for each single-particle state. Adding or removing
ing the number of particles occupying each of the single- bosons from each state is, therefore, analogous to excit-
particle states |1 , |2 , etc. This is simply another way ing or de-exciting a quantum of energy in a harmonic os-
of labelling the states. For instance, the above 3-particle cillator.
state is denoted as
Applying an annihilation operator ak followed by its cor-
responding creation operator ak returns the number Nk
of particles in the kth single-particle eigenstate:
|1, 2, 0, 0, 0, . . . .

An N-particle state belongs to a space of states describing

systems of N particles. The next step is to combine the
individual N-particle state spaces into an extended state
space, known as Fock space, which can describe systems
of any number of particles. This is composed of the state
space of a system with no particles (the so-called vacuum
state, written as |0 ), plus the state space of a 1-particle
system, plus the state space of a 2-particle system, and
so forth. States describing a denite number of parti-
cles are known as Fock states: a general element of Fock
space will be a linear combination of Fock states. There
is a one-to-one correspondence between the occupation
number representation and valid boson states in the Fock
space.
At this point, the quantum mechanical system has be-
come a quantum eld in the sense we described above.
The elds elementary degrees of freedom are the occupa- E =
tot
tion numbers, and each occupation number is indexed by
ak ak | . . . , Nk , . . . = Nk | . . . , Nk , . . . .
The combination of operators ak ak is known as the
number operator for the kth eigenstate.
The Hamiltonian operator of the quantum eld (which,
through the Schrdinger equation, determines its dynam-
ics) can be written in terms of creation and annihila-
tion operators. For instance, for a eld of free (non-
interacting) bosons, the total energy of the eld is found
by summing the energies of the bosons in each energy
eigenstate. If the kth single-particle energy eigenstate has
energy Ek and there are Nk bosons in this state, then the
total energy of these bosons is Ek Nk . The energy in the
entire eld is then a sum over k :
Ek Nk
k
10 4 PRINCIPLES

This can be turned into the Hamiltonian operator of the these states. For example, the bosonic eld annihilation
eld by replacing Nk with the corresponding number op- operator (r) is
erator, ak ak . This yields
def

(r) = eikj r aj .
j
H= Ek ak ak .
k The bosonic eld operators obey the commutation rela-
tion
4.3.2 Fermions
[ ] [ ]
[(r), (r )] = 0 , (r), (r ) = 0 , (r), (r ) = 3 (rr
It turns out that a dierent denition of creation and an-
nihilation must be used for describing fermions. Accord- where (x) stands for the Dirac delta function. As before,
ing to the Pauli exclusion principle, fermions cannot share the fermionic relations are the same, with the commuta-
quantum states, so their occupation numbers Ni can only tors replaced by anticommutators.
take on the value 0 or 1. The fermionic annihilation op- The eld operator is not the same thing as a single-particle
erators c and creation operators c are dened by their wavefunction. The former is an operator acting on the
actions on a Fock state thus Fock space, and the latter is a quantum-mechanical am-
plitude for nding a particle in some position. However,
they are closely related and are indeed commonly denoted
cj |N1 , N2 , . . . , Nj = 0, . . . = 0 with the same symbol. If we have a Hamiltonian with a
space representation, say
cj |N1 , N2 , . . . , Nj = 1, . . . = (1)(N1 ++Nj1 ) |N1 , N2 , . . . , Nj = 0, . . .
cj |N1 , N2 , . . . , Nj = 0, . . . = (1)(N1 ++Nj1 ) |N1 , N2 , . . . , Nj2=
1, . . .
H= 2i + U (|ri rj |)
2m
cj |N1 , N2 , . . . , Nj = 1, . . . = 0. i i<j

These obey an anticommutation relation: where the indices i and j run over all particles, then the
eld theory Hamiltonian (in the non-relativistic limit and
{ } { } for negligible self-interactions) is
{ci , cj } = 0 , ci , cj = 0 , ci , cj = ij .

2 1
One may notice from this that applying a fermionic cre- H = d 3
r (r)2
(r)+ d3
r d3r (r) (r )U (|rr |)(
2m 2
ation operator twice gives zero, so it is impossible for
the particles to share single-particle states, in accordance This looks remarkably like an expression for the expec-
with the exclusion principle. tation value of the energy, with playing the role of the
wavefunction. This relationship between the eld opera-
tors and wave functions makes it very easy to formulate
4.3.3 Field operators eld theories starting from space projected Hamiltonians.

See also: Canonical quantization

We have previously mentioned that there can be more
than one way of indexing the degrees of freedom in a
quantum eld. Second quantization indexes the eld by
enumerating the single-particle quantum states. How-
ever, as we have discussed, it is more natural to think
about a eld, such as the electromagnetic eld, as a set
of degrees of freedom indexed by position.
To this end, we can dene eld operators that create or
destroy a particle at a particular point in space. In particle
physics, these operators turn out to be more convenient
to work with, because they make it easier to formulate
theories that satisfy the demands of relativity.
Single-particle states are usually enumerated in terms of
their momenta (as in the particle in a box problem.)
We can construct eld operators by applying the Fourier
transform to the creation and annihilation operators for
4.4 Dynamics
Once the Hamiltonian operator is obtained as part of
the canonical quantization process, the time dependence
of the state is described with the Schrdinger equation,
just as with other quantum theories. Alternatively, the
Heisenberg picture can be used where the time depen-
dence is in the operators rather than in the states.
Probability amplitudes of observables in such systems
are quite hard to evaluate, an enterprise which has ab-
sorbed considerable ingenuity in the last three quarters
of a century. In practice, most often, expectation val-
ues of operators are computed systematically through co-
variant perturbation theory, formulated through Feynman
diagrams, but path integral computer simulations have
also produced important results. Contemporary particle
physics relies on extraordinarily accurate predictions of
such techniques.
4.5 Implications 11

4.5 Implications common situations N is an important and perfectly well-

dened quantity, e.g. if we are describing a gas of atoms
4.5.1 Unication of elds and particles sealed in a box. From the point of view of quantum eld
theory, such situations are described by quantum states
The second quantization procedure outlined in the pre- that are eigenstates of the number operator N , which
vious section takes a set of single-particle quantum states measures the total number of particles present. As with
as a starting point. Sometimes, it is impossible to dene any quantum mechanical observable, N is conserved if
such single-particle states, and one must proceed directly it commutes with the Hamiltonian. In that case, the
to quantum eld theory. For example, a quantum the- quantum state is trapped in the N-particle subspace of
ory of the electromagnetic eld must be a quantum eld the total Fock space, and the situation could equally well
theory, because it is impossible (for various reasons) to be described by ordinary N-particle quantum mechanics.
dene a wavefunction for a single photon.[36] In such sit- (Strictly speaking, this is only true in the noninteracting
uations, the quantum eld theory can be constructed by case or in the low energy density limit of renormalized
examining the mechanical properties of the classical eld quantum eld theories)
and guessing the corresponding quantum theory. For free For example, we can see that the free boson Hamilto-
(non-interacting) quantum elds, the quantum eld theo- nian described above conserves particle number. When-
ries obtained in this way have the same properties as those ever the Hamiltonian operates on a state, each particle
obtained using second quantization, such as well-dened destroyed by an annihilation operator ak is immediately
creation and annihilation operators obeying commutation put back by the creation operator ak .
or anticommutation relations.
On the other hand, it is possible, and indeed common, to
Quantum eld theory thus provides a unied frame- encounter quantum states that are not eigenstates of N ,
work for describing eld-like objects (such as the which do not have well-dened particle numbers. Such
electromagnetic eld, whose excitations are photons) states are dicult or impossible to handle using ordinary
and particle-like objects (such as electrons, which are
quantum mechanics, but they can be easily described in
treated as excitations of an underlying electron eld), so
quantum eld theory as quantum superpositions of states
long as one can treat interactions as perturbations of
having dierent values of N. For example, suppose we
free elds. have a bosonic eld whose particles can be created or de-
stroyed by interactions with a fermionic eld. The Hamil-
tonian of the combined system would be given by the
4.5.2 Physical meaning of particle indistinguisha-
Hamiltonians of the free boson and free fermion elds,
bility
plus a potential energy term such as
The second quantization procedure relies crucially on the
particles being identical. We would not have been able to
construct a quantum eld theory from a distinguishable HI = Vq (aq + aq )ck+q ck ,
many-particle system, because there would have been no k,q

way of separating and indexing the degrees of freedom.

Many physicists prefer to take the converse interpreta-
tion, which is that quantum eld theory explains what
identical particles are. In ordinary quantum mechanics,
there is not much theoretical motivation for using sym-
metric (bosonic) or antisymmetric (fermionic) states, and
the need for such states is simply regarded as an empiri-
cal fact. From the point of view of quantum eld theory,
particles are identical if and only if they are excitations
of the same underlying quantum eld. Thus, the ques-
tion why are all electrons identical?" arises from mis-
takenly regarding individual electrons as fundamental ob-
jects, when in fact it is only the electron eld that is fun-
damental.
4.5.3 Particle conservation and non-conservation
During second quantization, we started with a Hamilto-
nian and state space describing a xed number of parti-
cles (N), and ended with a Hamiltonian and state space
for an arbitrary number of particles. Of course, in many
where ak and ak denotes the bosonic creation and anni-
hilation operators, ck and ck denotes the fermionic cre-
ation and annihilation operators, and Vq is a parameter
that describes the strength of the interaction. This in-
teraction term describes processes in which a fermion
in state k either absorbs or emits a boson, thereby be-
ing kicked into a dierent eigenstate k + q . (In fact,
this type of Hamiltonian is used to describe the interac-
tion between conduction electrons and phonons in metals.
The interaction between electrons and photons is treated
in a similar way, but is a little more complicated because
the role of spin must be taken into account.) One thing to
notice here is that even if we start out with a xed number
of bosons, we will typically end up with a superposition
of states with dierent numbers of bosons at later times.
The number of fermions, however, is conserved in this
case.
In condensed matter physics, states with ill-dened par-
ticle numbers are particularly important for describing
the various superuids. Many of the dening character-
istics of a superuid arise from the notion that its quan-
12 5 ASSOCIATED PHENOMENA

tum state is a superposition of states with dierent parti- In order to dene a theory on a continuum, one may rst
cle numbers. In addition, the concept of a coherent state place a cuto on the elds, by postulating that quanta can-
(used to model the laser and the BCS ground state) refers not have energies above some extremely high value. This
to a state with an ill-dened particle number but a well- has the eect of replacing continuous space by a structure
dened phase. where very short wavelengths do not exist, as on a lattice.
Lattices break rotational symmetry, and one of the cru-
cial contributions made by Feynman, Pauli and Villars,
and modernized by 't Hooft and Veltman, is a symmetry-
5 Associated phenomena preserving cuto for perturbation theory (this process is
called regularization). There is no known symmetrical
Beyond the most general features of quantum eld theo- cuto outside of perturbation theory, so for rigorous or
ries, special aspects such as renormalizability, gauge sym- numerical work people often use an actual lattice.
metry, and supersymmetry are outlined below. On a lattice, every quantity is nite but depends on the
spacing. When taking the limit to zero spacing, one
makes sure that the physically observable quantities like
5.1 Renormalization the observed electron mass stay xed, which means that
the constants in the Lagrangian dening the theory de-
Main article: Renormalization pend on the spacing. By allowing the constants to vary
with the lattice spacing, all the results at long distances
Early in the history of quantum eld theory, as detailed become insensitive to the lattice, dening a continuum
above, it was found that many seemingly innocuous cal- limit.
culations, such as the perturbative shift in the energy of The renormalization procedure only works for a certain
an electron due to the presence of the electromagnetic limited class of quantum eld theories, called renormal-
eld, yield innite results. The reason is that the pertur- izable quantum eld theories. A theory is perturbatively
bation theory for the shift in an energy involves a sum over renormalizable when the constants in the Lagrangian only
all other energy levels, and there are innitely many levels diverge at worst as logarithms of the lattice spacing for
at short distances, so that each gives a nite contribution very short spacings. The continuum limit is then well
which results in a divergent series. dened in perturbation theory, and even if it is not fully
Many of these problems are related to failures in classical well dened non-perturbatively, the problems only show
electrodynamics that were identied but unsolved in the up at distance scales that are exponentially small in the in-
19th century, and they basically stem from the fact that verse coupling for weak couplings. The Standard Model
many of the supposedly intrinsic properties of an elec- of particle physics is perturbatively renormalizable, and
tron are tied to the electromagnetic eld that it carries so are its component theories (quantum electrodynam-
around with it. The energy carried by a single electron ics/electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics).
its self-energyis not simply the bare value, but also in- Of the three components, quantum electrodynamics is
cludes the energy contained in its electromagnetic eld, believed to not have a continuum limit by itself, while
its attendant cloud of photons. The energy in a eld of the asymptotically free SU(2) and SU(3) weak and strong
a spherical source diverges in both classical and quan- color interactions are nonperturbatively well dened.
tum mechanics, but as discovered by Weisskopf with help The renormalization group as developed along Wilsons
from Furry, in quantum mechanics the divergence is much breakthrough insights relates eective eld theories at
milder, going only as the logarithm of the radius of the a given scale to such at contiguous scales. It thus de-
sphere. scribes how renormalizable theories emerge as the long
The solution to the problem, presciently suggested by distance low-energy eective eld theory for any given
Stueckelberg, independently by Bethe after the cru- high-energy theory. As a consequence, renormalizable
cial experiment by Lamb and Retherford (the Lamb theories are insensitive to the precise nature of the under-
Retherford experiment), implemented at one loop by lying high-energy short-distance phenomena (the macro-
Schwinger, and systematically extended to all loops by scopic physics is dominated by only a few relevant ob-
Feynman and Dyson, with converging work by Tomonaga servables). This is a blessing in practical terms, because
in isolated postwar Japan, comes from recognizing that all it allows physicists to formulate low energy theories with-
the innities in the interactions of photons and electrons out detailed knowledge of high-energy phenomena. It is
can be isolated into redening a nite number of quanti- also a curse, because once a renormalizable theory such
ties in the equations by replacing them with the observed as the standard model is found to work, it provides very
values: specically the electrons mass and charge: this few clues to higher-energy processes.
is called renormalization. The technique of renormaliza- The only way high-energy processes can be seen in the
tion recognizes that the problem is tractable and essen- standard model is when they allow otherwise forbidden
tially purely mathematical; and that, physically, extremely events, or else if they reveal predicted compelling quanti-
short distances are at fault.
5.3 Supersymmetry 13

tative relations among the coupling constants of the the- be commutative. These transformations are combine
ories or models.
On account of renormalization, the couplings of QFT
vary with scale, thereby conning quarks into hadrons,
allowing the study of weakly-coupled quarks inside
hadrons, and enabling speculation on ultra-high energy
behavior.
See also: Renormalization group
into the framework of a gauge group; innitesimal gauge
transformations are the gauge group generators. Thus,
the number of gauge bosons is the group dimension (i.e.,
the number of generators forming the basis of the corre-
sponding Lie algebra).
All the known fundamental interactions in nature are de-
scribed by gauge theories (possibly barring the Higgs
multiplet couplings, if considered in isolation). These
are:

5.2 Gauge freedom Quantum chromodynamics, whose gauge group is

SU(3). The gauge bosons are eight gluons.
A gauge theory is a theory that admits a symmetry with a
local parameter. For example, in every quantum theory, The electroweak theory, whose gauge group is U(1)
the global phase of the wave function is arbitrary and does SU(2), (a direct product of U(1) and SU(2)). The
not represent something physical. Consequently, the the- gauge bosons are the photon and the massive W and
ory is invariant under a global change of phases (adding a Z bosons.
constant to the phase of all wave functions, everywhere);
this is a global symmetry. In quantum electrodynamics, Gravity, whose classical theory is general relativity,
the theory is also invariant under a local change of phase, relies on the equivalence principle, which is essen-
that is one may shift the phase of all wave functions tially a form of gauge symmetry. Its action may also
so that the shift may be dierent at every point in space- be written as a gauge theory of the Lorentz group on
time. This is a local symmetry. However, in order for a tangent space.[38]
well-dened derivative operator to exist, one must intro-
duce a new eld, the gauge eld, which also transforms in
order for the local change of variables (the phase in our 5.3 Supersymmetry
example) not to aect the derivative. In quantum elec-
trodynamics, this gauge eld is the electromagnetic eld. Main article: Supersymmetry
The change of local gauge of variables is termed gauge
transformation. Supersymmetry assumes that every fundamental fermion
By Noethers theorem, for every such symmetry there has a superpartner that is a boson and vice versa. Its gauge
exists an associated conserved current. The aforemen- theory, Supergravity, is an extension of general relativity.
tioned symmetry of the wavefunction under global phase Supersymmetry is a key ingredient for the consistency of
changes implies the conservation of electric charge. Since string theory.
the excitations of elds represent particles, the particle
It was utilized in order to solve the so-called Hierarchy
associated with excitations of the gauge eld is the gauge Problem of the standard model, that is, to explain why
boson, e.g., the photon in the case of quantum electrody-
particles not protected by any symmetry (like the Higgs
namics. boson) do not receive radiative corrections to their mass,
The degrees of freedom in quantum eld theory are lo- driving it to the larger scales such as that of GUTs, or the
cal uctuations of the elds. The existence of a gauge Planck mass of gravity. The way supersymmetry protects
symmetry reduces the number of degrees of freedom, scale hierarchies is the following: since for every particle
simply because some uctuations of the elds can be there is a superpartner with the same mass but dierent
transformed to zero by gauge transformations, so they statistics, any loop in a radiative correction is cancelled
are equivalent to having no uctuations at all, and they, by the loop corresponding to its superpartner, rendering
therefore, have no physical meaning. Such uctuations the theory more UV nite.
are usually called non-physical degrees of freedom or Since, however, no super partners have been observed,
gauge artifacts; usually, some of them have a negative if supersymmetry existed it should be broken severely
norm, making them inadequate for a consistent theory. (through a so-called soft term, which breaks supersym-
Therefore, if a classical eld theory has a gauge symme-metry without ruining its helpful features). The simplest
try, then its quantized version (the corresponding quan-models of this breaking require that the energy of the su-
tum eld theory) will have this symmetry as well. In perpartners not be too high; in these cases, supersymme-
other words, a gauge symmetry cannot have a quantum try could be observed by experiments at the Large Hadron
anomaly.[37] Collider. However, to date, after the observation of the
In general, the gauge transformations of a theory con- Higgs boson there, no such superparticles have been dis-
sist of several dierent transformations, which may not covered.
14 7 SEE ALSO

6 Axiomatic approaches spite producing vastly precise predictions validated by ex-

periment. This is called Haags theorem, but most parti-
The preceding description of quantum eld theory fol- cle physicists relying on QFT largely shrug it o, as not
lows the spirit in which most physicists approach the sub- really limiting the power of the theory.
ject. However, it is not mathematically rigorous. Over
the past several decades, there have been many attempts
to put quantum eld theory on a rm mathematical foot- 7 See also
ing by formulating a set of axioms for it. These attempts
fall into two broad classes.
AbrahamLorentz force
The rst class of axioms, rst proposed during the
1950s, include the Wightman, OsterwalderSchrader, Introduction to quantum mechanics
and HaagKastler systems. They attempted to formal-
ize the physicists notion of an operator-valued eld Common integrals in quantum eld theory
within the context of functional analysis and enjoyed lim-
ited success. It was possible to prove that any quantum EinsteinMaxwellDirac equations
eld theory satisfying these axioms satised certain gen-
eral theorems, such as the spin-statistics theorem and the Form factor (quantum eld theory)
CPT theorem. Unfortunately, it proved extraordinarily
GreenKubo relations
dicult to show that any realistic eld theory, including
the Standard Model, satised these axioms. Most of the
Greens function (many-body theory)
theories that could be treated with these analytic axioms
were physically trivial, being restricted to low-dimensions Invariance mechanics
and lacking interesting dynamics. The construction of
theories satisfying one of these sets of axioms falls in List of quantum eld theories
the eld of constructive quantum eld theory. Important
work was done in this area in the 1970s by Segal, Glimm, Quantization of a eld
Jae and others.
During the 1980s, the second set of axioms based on Quantum electrodynamics
geometric ideas was proposed. This line of investigation,
Quantum eld theory in curved spacetime
which restricts its attention to a particular class of quan-
tum eld theories known as topological quantum eld
Quantum avordynamics
theories, is associated most closely with Michael Atiyah
and Graeme Segal, and was notably expanded upon by Quantum hydrodynamics
Edward Witten, Richard Borcherds, and Maxim Kontse-
vich. However, most of the physically relevant quantum Quantum triviality
eld theories, such as the Standard Model, are not topo-
logical quantum eld theories; the quantum eld theory of Relation between Schrdingers equation and the
the fractional quantum Hall eect is a notable exception. path integral formulation of quantum mechanics
The main impact of axiomatic topological quantum eld
theory has been on mathematics, with important appli- Relationship between string theory and quantum
cations in representation theory, algebraic topology, and eld theory
dierential geometry.
SchwingerDyson equation
Finding the proper axioms for quantum eld theory is still
an open and dicult problem in mathematics. One of the
Static forces and virtual-particle exchange
Millennium Prize Problemsproving the existence of a
mass gap in YangMills theoryis linked to this issue. Symmetry in quantum mechanics

Theoretical and experimental justication for the

6.1 Haags theorem Schrdinger equation

Main article: Haags theorem WardTakahashi identity

WheelerFeynman absorber theory

From a mathematically rigorous perspective, there ex-
ists no interaction picture in a Lorentz-covariant quantum Wigners classication
eld theory. This implies that the perturbative approach
of Feynman diagrams in QFT is not strictly justied, de- Wigners theorem

8 Notes
[1] Dirac 1927
[2] Schweber 1994, p. 28
[3] See references in Schweber (1994, pp. 695)
[4] Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli, Zur Quantendy-
namik der Wellenfelder, Zeitschrift fr Physik, 56, 1929,
161.
[5] Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli, Zur Quanten-
dynamik der Wellenfelder II, Zeitschrift fr Physik, 59,
1930, 168190.
[6] Weinberg 1995, p. 15
[7] Griths, D. (2009). Introduction to Elementary Particles
(2nd ed.). pp. 314315. ISBN 978-3-527-40601-2.
[8] W. Pauli and V. Weisskopf, Ueber die Ouantizierung der
skalaren relativistischen Wellengleichung, Helv. Phys.
Acta 7, 1934.
[9] Part II of Peskin & Schroeder (1995) gives an extensive
description of renormalization.
[10] Peskin & Schroeder (1995, Chapter4)
[11] Greiner & Reinhardt 1996
[12] Yang, C. N. (2012). Fermis -decay Theory. Asia Pa-
cic Physics Newsletter 1 (01), 27-30. online copy
[13] Special unitary groups in the Eightfold way completely de-
termined the form of the theories, and current algebras
implemented these symmetries in QFT without particu-
lar cognizance of dynamics, still producing a plethora of
predictive correlations.
[14] Yang, C. N.; Mills, R. (1954). Conservation of Iso-
topic Spin and Isotopic Gauge Invariance. Physical Re-
view. 96 (1): 191195. Bibcode:1954PhRv...96..191Y.
doi:10.1103/PhysRev.96.191.
[15] Nambu, Y (1960). Quasiparticles and Gauge Invari-
ance in the Theory of Superconductivity. Physical Re-
view. 117: 648663. Bibcode:1960PhRv..117..648N.
doi:10.1103/PhysRev.117.648.
[16] Altogether, there is outstanding agreement with experi-
mental data; for example, the masses of
W+
and
W quantum theory) then the theory is inconsistent: for exam-
bosons conrmed the theoretical prediction within one
percent deviation.
[17] L. P. Kadano (1966): Scaling laws for Ising models
near Tc ", Physics 2, 263.
[18] Kenneth G. Wilson and Michael E. Fisher, Critical Ex-
ponents in 3.99 Dimensions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 28 (1972),
240.
[19] Stueckelberg, E. C. G. and A. Petermann (1953). La
renormalisation des constants dans la thorie de quanta,
Helv. Phys. Acta 26, 499520.
15
[20] Gell-Mann, M.; Low, F.E. (1954). Quantum Elec-
trodynamics at Small Distances. Physical Review.
95 (5): 13001312. Bibcode:1954PhRv...95.1300G.
doi:10.1103/PhysRev.95.1300.
[21] Wilson, K. (1975). The renormalization group: Critical
phenomena and the Kondo problem. Reviews of Modern
Physics. 47 (4): 773. Bibcode:1975RvMP...47..773W.
doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.47.773.
[22] L. P. Kadano (1969): Operator Algebra and the Deter-
mination of Critical Indices, Phys. Rev. Lett. 23(1430),
1969.
[23] Belavin AA; Polyakov AM; Zamolodchikov AB (1984).
Innite conformal symmetry in two-dimensional quan-
tum eld theory. Nucl. Phys. B. 241 (2): 333
80. Bibcode:1984NuPhB.241..333B. doi:10.1016/0550-
3213(84)90052-X.
[24] Clment Hongler, Conformal invariance of Ising model
correlations, Ph.D. thesis, Universit of Geneva, 2010, p.
9.
[25] Beautiful Minds, Vol. 20: Ed Witten. la Repubblica.
2010. Retrieved 22 June 2012. See here.
[26] Cole, K. C. (18 October 1987). A Theory of Every-
thing. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 15
September 2016.
[27] Thorn et al. 2004
[28] Tong 2015, Chapter 1
[29] Brown, Lowell S. (1994). Quantum Field Theory.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-46946-3.
[30] Srednicki 2007, p. 19
[31] Srednicki 2007, pp. 2526
[32] Zee 2010, p. 61
[33] Tong 2015, Introduction
[34] Zee 2010, p. 3
[35] Pais 1994. Pais recounts how his astonishment at the
rapidity with which Feynman could calculate using his
method. Feynmans method is now part of the standard
methods for physicists.
[36] Newton & Wigner 1949, pp. 400406
[37] If a gauge symmetry is anomalous (i.e. not kept in the
ple, in quantum electrodynamics, had there been a gauge
anomaly, this would require the appearance of photons
with longitudinal polarization and polarization in the time
direction, the latter having a negative norm, rendering the
theory inconsistent; another possibility would be for these
photons to appear only in intermediate processes but not
in the nal products of any interaction, making the theory
non-unitary and again inconsistent (see optical theorem).
[38] However, it is non-renormalizable. Veltman, M. J. G.
(1976). Methods in Field Theory, Proceedings of the Les
Houches Summer School, Les Houches, France, 1975.
16
9 References
Historical references
Born, M.; Jordan, P.; Heisenberg, W. (1926).
Zur quantenmechanic II [On Quantum mechan-
ics II]. Zeitschrift fr Physik (in German). Springer
Verlag. 35 (8). Bibcode:1926ZPhy...35..557B.
doi:10.1007/BF01379806. ISSN 0044-3328. (Sub-
scription required (help)).
Dirac, P. A. M. (1927). The quantum theory of
the emission and absorption of radiation. Proc. Advanced texts
R. Soc. Lond. A. Royal Society Publishing. 114
(767): 243265. Bibcode:1927RSPSA.114..243D.
doi:10.1098/rspa.1927.0039. (Subscription re-
quired (help)).
General reader level
Pais, A. (1994) [1986]. Inward Bound: Of Matter
and Forces in the Physical World (reprint ed.). Ox- General readers
ford, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0198519973.
Schweber, S. S. (1994). QED and the Men
Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and
Tomonaga. Princeton University Press. ISBN
9780691033273.
Articles
Newton, T. D.; Wigner, E.P. (1949). Localized
states for elementary systems. Rev. Mod. Phys. Schumm, Bruce A. (2004) Deep Down Things.
APS. 21 (3). Bibcode:1949RvMP...21..400N.
doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.21.400. ISSN 0034-
6861. Introductory texts
Thorn, J. J.; Neel, M. S.; Donato, W. V.; Bergreen,
G. S.; Davies, R. E.; Beck, M.. (2004). Observing
the quantum behavior of light in an undergradu-
ate laboratory (PDF). Am. J. Phys. American
Association of Physics Teachers. 72 (1210):
243265. Bibcode:2004AmJPh..72.1210T.
doi:10.1119/1.1737397.
Introductory texts
Greiner, W.; Reinhardt, J. (1996). Field Quantiza-
tion. Springer Publishing. ISBN 3-540-59179-6.
Peskin, M.; Schroeder, D. (1995). An Introduction
to Quantum Field Theory. Westview Press. ISBN
0-201-50397-2.
Scharf, Gnter (2014) [1989]. Finite Quantum
Electrodynamics: The Causal Approach (third ed.).
Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0486492735.
10 FURTHER READING
Srednicki, M. (2007). Quantum Field Theory.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521-
8644-97.
Tong, David (2015). Lectures on Quantum Field
Theory. Retrieved 2016-02-09.
Zee, Anthony (2010). Quantum Field Theory in
a Nutshell (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press.
ISBN 978-0691140346.
Weinberg, S. (1995). The Quantum Theory of
Fields. 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-
0521550017.
10 Further reading
Feynman, R.P. (2001) [1964]. The Character of
Physical Law. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-56003-8.
Feynman, R.P. (2006) [1985]. QED: The Strange
Theory of Light and Matter. Princeton University
Press. ISBN 0-691-12575-9.
Gribbin, J. (1998). Q is for Quantum: Particle
Physics from A to Z. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN
0-297-81752-3.
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. Chpt. 4.
McMahon, D. (2008). Quantum Field Theory.
McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-154382-8.
Bogolyubov, N.; Shirkov, D. (1982). Quantum
Fields. Benjamin Cummings. ISBN 0-8053-0983-
7.
Frampton, P.H. (2000). Gauge Field Theories.
Frontiers in Physics (2nd ed.). Wiley.
Greiner, W; Mller, B. (2000). Gauge Theory of
Weak Interactions. Springer. ISBN 3-540-67672-4.
Itzykson, C.; Zuber, J.-B. (1980). Quantum Field
Theory. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-032071-3.
Kane, G.L. (1987). Modern Elementary Particle
Physics. Perseus Group. ISBN 0-201-11749-5.
Kleinert, H.; Schulte-Frohlinde, Verena (2001).
Critical Properties of 4 -Theories. World Scientic.
ISBN 981-02-4658-7.
 17

Kleinert, H. (2008). Multivalued Fields in Con-

densed Matter, Electrodynamics, and Gravitation
(PDF). World Scientic. ISBN 978-981-279-170-
2.
Loudon, R (1983). The Quantum Theory of Light.
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-851155-8.
Mandl, F.; Shaw, G. (1993). Quantum Field Theory.
John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-94186-6.
Ryder, L.H. (1985). Quantum Field Theory.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-33859-
X.
Schwartz, M.D. (2014). Quantum Field Theory and
the Standard Model. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 978-1107034730.
Yndurin, F.J. (1996). Relativistic Quantum Me-
chanics and Introduction to Field Theory (1st ed.).
Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-60453-2.

Advanced texts

Brown, Lowell S. (1994). Quantum Field The-

ory. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-
46946-3.
Bogoliubov, N.; Logunov, A.A.; Oksak, A.I.;
Todorov, I.T. (1990). General Principles of Quan-
tum Field Theory. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
ISBN 978-0-7923-0540-8.

Articles

't Hooft, Gerard (2007). Buttereld, J.; Earman,

John, eds. Philosophy of Physics. Part A. The Con-
ceptual Basis of Quantum Field Theory: Elsevier.
pp. 661730 via ScienceDirect. (Subscription re-
quired (help)). On web at 't Hoofts university web-
site

Wilczek, frank (1999). Quantum eld theory.

Rev. Mod. Phys. 71 (S85S95). arXiv:hep-
th/9803075v2 . Bibcode:1999RvMPS..71...85W.
doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.71.S85.

11 External links
Hazewinkel, Michiel, ed. (2001), Quantum eld
theory, Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Springer,
ISBN 978-1-55608-010-4
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Quantum
Field Theory", by Meinard Kuhlmann.
Siegel, Warren, 2005. Fields. A free text, also avail-
able from arXiv:hep-th/9912205.
Quantum Field Theory by P. J. Mulders
18 12 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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