On the occurrence of mass in field theory

DOI10.1023/A:1020363907605zbMATH Open1133.81362arXivhep-th/0008229OpenAlexW1584960319WikidataQ57514629 ScholiaQ57514629MaRDI QIDQ2481071FDOQ2481071

Authors: Giampiero Esposito 

Publication date: 8 April 2008

Published in: Foundations of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: This paper proves that it is possible to build a Lagrangian for quantum electrodynamics which makes it explicit that the photon mass is eventually set to zero in the physical part on observational ground. Gauge independence is achieved upon considering the joint effect of gauge-averaging term and ghost fields. It remains possible to obtain a counterterm Lagrangian where the only non-gauge-invariant term is proportional to the squared divergence of the potential, while the photon propagator in momentum space falls off like 1 over (k-squared) at large k, which indeed agrees with perturbative renormalizability. The resulting radiative corrections to the Coulomb potential in QED are also shown to be gauge-independent. The experience acquired with quantum electrodynamics is used to investigate properties and problems of the extension of such ideas to non-Abelian gauge theories.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0008229

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zbMATH Keywords

path integralsquantum electrodynamicsperturbative renormalization

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Electromagnetic interaction; quantum electrodynamics (81V10)

Cited In (6)

• Comment and addendum to `On the occurrence of mass in field theory'
• Resummation of mass terms in perturbative massless quantum field theory
• Conformal gauges and renormalized equations of motion in massless quantum electrodynamics
• Electrodynamics in the 't Hooft gauge, a covariant operator approach
• Photon mass via current confinement
• Title not available (Why is that?)

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