Complex masses and acausal propagation in field theory

It is shown that in formulating a field theory with complex masses, keeping much closer to a detailed space-time description than existing treatments, one is naturally led to a modified Yang-Feldman equation. A consistent interpretation emerges, in which the complex masses are not associated with pa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nuclear physics. B 1972-01, Vol.43, p.205-227
Main Authors: Marques, G.C., Swieca, J.A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CAUSALITY
MASS
N64420 -Physics (Theoretical)-Quantum Field Theories
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY/formalism with complex masses and acausal propagation
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY/Yang-Feldman equation in, modified
YANG-FELDMAN FORMALISM
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Summary:It is shown that in formulating a field theory with complex masses, keeping much closer to a detailed space-time description than existing treatments, one is naturally led to a modified Yang-Feldman equation. A consistent interpretation emerges, in which the complex masses are not associated with particles, but with a modification of the field propagation law, which becomes acausal. The indefinite metric of the usual treatments plays no role here. An investigation of both the case of interaction with an external potential, and of the fully quantized theory is carried out. No unitarity, or Lorentz invariance troubles arise, but in the case of a fully quantized theory, the contribution of virtual states with arbitrarily high energy, leads to an enhancement of the basic acausality of the propagation law, in a way that may lead to macroscopic deviation from causality.
ISSN:0550-3213
1873-1562
DOI:10.1016/0550-3213(72)90016-8