MASSLESS PARTICLES, ELECTROMAGNETISM, AND RIEFFEL INDUCTION

DOI10.1142/S0129055X95000359MaRDI QIDQ4852278zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Urs Achim Wiedemann, Klaas Landsman

Publication date 25 March 1996

Published in Reviews in Mathematical Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9411174

zbMATH Keywords

field theories with constraintsgauge groupsgeneral relativityquantizationquantum electromagnetism

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of global analysis to the sciences (58Z05) Infinite-dimensional groups and algebras motivated by physics, including Virasoro, Kac-Moody, (W)-algebras and other current algebras and their representations (81R10) Yang-Mills and other gauge theories in quantum field theory (81T13) Electromagnetic interaction; quantum electrodynamics (81V10) Methods of quantum field theory in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C47)

Abstract: The connection between space-time covariant representations (obtained by inducing from the Lorentz group) and irreducible unitary representations (induced from Wigner's little group) of the Poincar'{e} group is re-examined in the massless case. In the situation relevant to physics, it is found that these are related by Marsden-Weinstein reduction with respect to a gauge group. An analogous phenomenon is observed for classical massless relativistic particles. This symplectic reduction procedure can be (`second') quantized using a generalization of the Rieffel induction technique in operator algebra theory, which is carried through in detail for electro- magnetism. Starting from the so-called Fermi representation of the field algebra generated by the free abelian gauge field, we construct a new (`rigged') sesquilinear form on the representation space, which is positive semi-definite, and given in terms of a Gaussian weak distribution (promeasure) on the gauge group (taken to be a Hilbert Lie group). This eventually constructs the algebra of observables of quantum electro- magnetism (directly in its vacuum representation) as a representation of the so-called algebra of weak observables induced by the trivial representation of the gauge group.

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Cited in

(9)

• Constrained quantization and \(\theta \)-angles
• Exploring the holographic principle in asymptotically flat spacetimes via the BMS group
• Rieffel induction as generalized quantum Marsden-Weinstein reduction
• The momentum operators corresponding to a localized massless particle
• Superselection in the presence of constraints
• Hilbert space representations of the Poincaré group for the Landau gauge
• The Stückelberg–Kibble model as an example of quantized symplectic reduction
• Quantum constraints
• Why have we never observed the massless charged particle?

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