This page provides Glenn Eric Johnson’s latest notes on relativistic quantum physics. Please contact me with questions, comments and corrections at glenn.e.johnson@gmail.com. The notes will be updated with clarifications and corrections.
Announcement: 3rd edition, revised (earlier versions should be discarded):
In these notes, constructions demonstrate existence of physically nontrivial realizations of relativistic quantum physics (RQP). A revised understanding of the quantum-classical correspondence in relativistic physics enables realization of RQP with quantum fields. Relativistic location is the archetype for this revised understanding. The constructions satisfy the established properties of quantum mechanics and relativity except for Hermiticity of the fields that appear in the Hilbert space scalar product. A development of Hermiticity suitable for multiple component fields including complex spinor fields is presented. Realization of quantum mechanics is emphasized over “quantization” of classical description. The quantum-classical correspondence considers conditional approximation of the quantum dynamics by classical description, rather than assert that quantum dynamics “quantizes” classical description. In the constructions, interaction is implemented with physically nontrivial vacuum expectations values (VEV) for non-Hermitian field operators with “trivial” free field-like Hamiltonians, as a realizable alternative to the RQFT implementation of classically inspired actions expressed in Hermitian field operators with “trivial” free field-like Hilbert space scalar products. The constructions determine general state transition likelihoods. These general state transition likelihoods include limits that are weak interaction asymptotes to Feynman series scattering likelihoods. Lorentz covariance is achieved by the constructions with a wholly quantum mechanical description of states and relativistic interaction, and a Hamiltonian that is demonstrably the generator of time translation; classically corresponding descriptions approximate the quantum state descriptions in appropriate instances.
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