Re: Is "Renormalization" normal??
From: Eugene Stefanovich (eugenev_at_synopsys.com)
Date: 02/18/05
- Next message: Jay R. Yablon: "Baryons, e.g., nucleons"
- Previous message: kenseto: "Re: Debunking Ken Seto in progress...."
- In reply to: Q-on: "Is "Renormalization" normal??"
- Next in thread: hdr: "Re: Is "Renormalization" normal??"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 11:54:49 -0800
Q-on wrote:
> Is anyone having problems believing renormalization is normal? I
> mean. Could it be "doctored" or sweeping under the carpet
> problems of a theory that was inherently flawed as he put it?
>
> La Violette said:
>
> "The energy summation of all virtual particles momentarily
> existing around a Particle also poses a problem since quantum
> field theory predicts that a given virtual Particle cloud should
> have an infinitely large mass. For example, in creating each
> virtual photon the electron is assumed to "borrow" energy from
> the uncertainty relation "bank.' Although this energy is assumed
> to be "paid back" shortly thereafter to avoid violating the law
> of energy conservation, there would always be a net reservoir of
> virtual photon energy in the electron's photon cloud. When the
> individual packets of energy associated with each virtual photon
> are added up, however, the energy (and mass) of the electron
> together with its virtual particle cloud is found to be infinite.
> This blatantly contradicts experimental observation that shows
> the electron as having a finite rest mass, whose energy
> equivalent amounts to 510,000 electron volts.*
>
> Physicists have attempted to resolve this difficulty through a
> process called renormalization, or the ad hoc assumption that the
> "bare" electron core has an infinite negative mass of just the
> right amount to cancel out most of the infinite positive mass of
> the electron's photon cloud and leave a net positive residual
> equivalent to the electron~s observed mass. Further complicating
> matters, this ad hoc finely tuned renormalization procedure must
> be repeated for each force field that a particle is presumed to
> generate, since the clouds of virtual pions, gluons, and other
> particles required to mediate strong and weak forces and quark
> binding would similarly produce singularities. Many physicists
> find this technique unsatisfactory, since there is no reason to
> justify the infinite negative mass assumption other than the
> purported need to patch up the failing quantum electrodynamics
> theory. Paul Dirac, a famous British physicist known for his 1928
> pred iction of the existence of antimatter, played an important
> role in developing the foundations of quantum electrodynamics.
> But throughout his life he expressed his displeasure with the
> business of renormalization. He felt it was no more than a poorly
> executed attempt to sweep under the carpet problems of a theory
> that was inherently flawed."
>
I share Dirac's displeasure, and I have a solution of this paradox.
In my view, the problem is that we just picked
wrong Hamiltonians for our QFT
theories. Renormalization is an awkward attempt to remedy the
deficiencies of the Hamiltonians. Renormalization does produce
the correct S-matrix, but the presence of infinite counterterms
(=infinite masses and charges of bare particles) makes the Hamiltonian
of the renormalized theory unusable for calculations of the time
evolution and wavefunctions of bound states.
This problem can be fixed by the "dressing transformation" of the
Hamiltonian. This transformation does not affect predictions of the
theory regarding the S-matrix, but the Hamiltonian becomes finite,
and divergent integrals never show up. You can find the details
in my online book www.meopemuk.com/book.pdf.
There is also a couple of papers posted on www.geocities.com/meopemuk.
Regards.
Eugene Stefanovich.
- Next message: Jay R. Yablon: "Baryons, e.g., nucleons"
- Previous message: kenseto: "Re: Debunking Ken Seto in progress...."
- In reply to: Q-on: "Is "Renormalization" normal??"
- Next in thread: hdr: "Re: Is "Renormalization" normal??"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
|
