Weak adiabatic limit in quantum field theories with massless particles (Q1742405)

This paper gives the proof of the existence of the weak adiabatic limit in four-dimensional Minkowski space in models with interaction vertices. A special emphasis is put on the Wightman functions which are of more fundamental character than Green functions as they are explicitly Poincaré-invariant, have a spectrum condition, show hermiticity, locality and positivity and thus reflect the basic assumptions of relativistic QFT. Both Wightman and Green functions are constructed by the Epstein-Glaser approach, which is outlined in Section 2; the basic objects are time-ordered products of free fields. In Section 3, the main results including the proof of the weak adiabatic limit are presented, where the crucial point is the ``Normalization condition sufficient for the existence of the weak Adiabatic Limit'' which is formulated in Section 3.6. First, the proof for massive theories is given, later the idea of the proof for masssles particles is outlined, prepared with mathematical preliminaries in very much detail and finally the proof for massless particles with interaction vertices of dimension three and four presented, where the assumption is that at least one massive field is involved. The compatibility of this normalization condition with standard normalization from time-ordered product formulated as a ``Central Normalization Condition'' is shown in Section 4 together with a list of properties of both Wightman and Green functions. Finally, Section 5 deals with the vacuum state in the algebraic adiabatic limit and a Poincaré-invariant state; a short summary and conclusions follow in Section 6. The appendices deal with the correct mass normalization in the weak adiabatic limit in second order of perturbation theory, interaction vertices of different dimensions than three or four and a comparison of the Green functions in the Epstein-Glaser approach with the Gell-Mann and Low formula.