Quantum Electrodynamics at Large Distances II: Nature of the Dominant Singularities
Abstract
Accurate calculations of macroscopic and mesoscopic properties in quantum electrodynamics require careful treatment of infrared divergences: standard treatments introduce spurious large-distances effects. A method for computing these properties was developed in a companion paper. That method depends upon a result obtained here about the nature of the singularities that produce the dominant large-distance behaviour. If all particles in a quantum field theory have non-zero mass then the Landau-Nakanishi diagrams give strong conditions on the singularities of the scattering functions. These conditions are severely weakened in quantum electrodynamics by effects of points where photon momenta vanish. A new kind of Landau-Nakanishi diagram is developed here. It is geared specifically to the pole-decomposition functions that dominate the macroscopic behaviour in quantum electrodynamics, and leads to strong results for these functions at points where photon momenta vanish.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/9511031,
title = {Quantum Electrodynamics at Large Distances II: Nature of the Dominant Singularities},
author = {Henry P. Stapp and Takahiro Kawai},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/9511031},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
40 pages, 11 encapsulated postscript figures, latexed, math_macros.tex can be found on Archive. full postscript available from http://theorl.lbl.gov/www/theorgroup/papers/35972.ps