English

QED in the worldline representation

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-11-26 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Simultaneously with inventing the modern relativistic formalism of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman presented also a first-quantized representation of QED in terms of worldline path integrals. Although this alternative formulation has been studied over the years by many authors, only during the last fifteen years it has acquired some popularity as a computational tool. I will shortly review here three very different techniques which have been developed during the last few years for the evaluation of worldline path integrals, namely (i) the ``string-inspired formalism'', based on the use of worldline Green functions, (ii) the numerical ``worldline Monte Carlo formalism'', and (iii) the semiclassical ``worldline instanton'' approach.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0703186,
  title  = {QED in the worldline representation},
  author = {Christian Schubert},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0703186},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

18 pages, 7 figures, talk given at VI Latinamerican Symposium on High Energy Physics, Nov. 1-8, 2006, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; references added and corrected (no other changes)

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:41:27.539Z