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- Path: sparky!uunet!well!sarfatti
- From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
- Subject: Feynman 43 Advanced causes needed for energy conserving radiation reaction in QED.
- Message-ID: <C03un0.xF@well.sf.ca.us>
- Sender: news@well.sf.ca.us
- Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
- Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 03:49:48 GMT
- Lines: 54
-
-
- Feynman 43 QED & renormalization Part V Advanced effects from the future
- required for energy-conserving radiation reaction?
-
- ref. Schwinger reprints volume QED Dover p.244
- 6. Radiative corrections to scattering.
- Feynman has introduces his short wave convergence factor C(k^2) to avoid
- the ultra-violet catastrophe. Now he also sticks in a long photon wave cut
- off (i.e. small photon mass which violates gauge invariance) to avoid the
- "infrared catastrophe" Rmember just putting in the Planck length means we
- do not need Feynman's C(k^2) and we get a gravitationally limited self-
- energy for the electron that is of order of the observed electron mass -
- that is zero bare electron mass? I could be wrong about this!
-
- I will not go into the details of this section but Feynman computes "the
- change in the (electron) magnetic moment and the Lamb shift" ...He makes
- the interesting remark "In this problem of the radiative corrections to
- scattering the net ressult is insensitive to the cut-off ... by a simple
- rearrangement of terms previous to the integration we could have avoided
- the use of convegence factors completely ... the use of convergence
- factors, even when they are actually unnecessary, may facuilitate analysis
- somewhat by removing the effort and ambiguities that may be involved in
- trying to rearrange the otherwise divergent terms.
-
- The replacement of D+ by f+ .. is not determined by the analogy with the
- classical problem. In the classical limit only the real part of D+ is easy
- to interpret. But by what should the imaginary part 1/ipis^2, of D+ be
- replaced? The choice we have made here (in defining ... the location of the
- poles of (17) is arbitrary and almost certainly incorrect. If the radiation
- resistance is calculated for an atom, as the imaginary part of (8)
-
- [(-ie^2)S^2[fad(4)GK+(4,3)Gf(3)D+(s43^2)d3d4] (8)
-
- in the self energy problem above]
-
- the result depends slightly on f+. On the other hand the light radiated at
- very large distances from a source is independent of f+. The total energy
- absorbed by distant absorbers will not check with the energy loss of the
- source. We are in a situation analogous to that in the classical theory if
- the entire f function is made to contain only retarded contributions."
-
- *Note advanced effects are required to get conservation of energy including
- radiation reaction (Sarfatti).*
-
- Feynman continues:"One can say therefore, that this attempt to find a
- consistent modification of quantum electrodynamics is incomplete... For it
- could turn out that any correct form for f+ which will guarantee energy
- conservation may at the same time not be able to make the self-energy
- integral finite." Feynman closes this section with a possible solution in
- which the short wave cut-off limits to zero - but the issue is left
- hanging.
-
- to be continued
-
-