English

The Infraparticle Edge

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-07-14 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Quantum Physics

Abstract

I derive the charged-particle spectral edge from the quantum instrument of soft QED. I use two projections of that instrument. Tracing over unresolved photons gives the reduced hard-sector channel. Pushing the outcomes to total energy gives the inclusive energy distribution. Its Laplace exponent is fixed by the diagonal soft intensity. For dNh(ω)=ηhdω/ω+dNh,reg(ω){\rm d} N_h(\omega)=\eta_h{\rm d}\omega/\omega+{\rm d} N_{h,\mathrm{reg}}(\omega), I obtain ρinc(s)Cθ(sm2)(sm2)1+ηh\rho_{\mathrm{inc}}(s)\sim C\theta(s-m^2)(s-m^2)^{-1+\eta_h}. I retain the coherence kernel and derive hard-sector dephasing and the spectral edge from two contractions of one soft environment. The diagonal coefficient κaa\kappa_{aa} fixes the endpoint exponent, while 12(κaa+κbb2Reκba)\frac12(\kappa_{aa}+\kappa_{bb}-2\operatorname{Re}\kappa_{ba}) fixes the dephasing exponent between hard alternatives. I then classify infrared energy marginals, derive the finite-resolution residue Z(μ)=(μ/Λ)ηhZ(\mu)=(\mu/\Lambda)^{\eta_h}, prove stability under infrared-integrable perturbations, and separate the bath exponent from a hard threshold exponent. For the one-electron spectral measure, the hard threshold factor is regular. The resulting edge has the local power law of a gapped unparticle spectrum, while its exponent remains a response coefficient of the unresolved photon sector.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.13001,
  title  = {The Infraparticle Edge},
  author = {Soo-Jong Rey},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.13001},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

18 pages; 1 figure