Quantum Electrodynamics (Frontiers in Physics)

✍ Scribed by Richard P. Feynman

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 209
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This text material constitutes notes on the third of a three-semester course in quantum mechanics given at the California Institute of Technology in 1953, presenting the main results and calculational procedures of quantum electrodynamics.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Editor's Foreword
Preface
Interaction of Light with Matter—Quantum Electrodynamics
Discussion of Fermi's method
Laws of Quantum electrodynamics
Résumé of the Principles and Results of Special Relativity
Solution of the Maxwell equation in empty space
Relativistic particle mechanics
Relativistic Wave Equation
Units
Klein-Gordon, Pauli, and Dirac equations
Algebra of the γ matrices
Equivalence transformation
Relativistic invariance
Hamiltonian form of the Dirac equation
Nonrelativistic approximation to the Dirac equation
Solution of the Dirac Equation for a Free Particle
Definition of the spin of a moving electron
Normalization of the wave functions
Methods of obtaining matrix elements
Interpretation of negative energy states
Potential Problems in Quantum Electrodynamics
Pair creation and annihilation
Conservation of energy
The propagation kernel
Use of the kernel K[sub(+)] (2, 1)
Transition probablility
Scattering of an electron from a coulomb potential
Calculation of the propagation kernel for a free particle
Momentum representation
Relativistic Treatment of the Interaction of Particles with Light
Radiation from atoms
Scattering of gamma rays by atomic electrons
Digression on the density of final states
Compton radiation
Two-photon pair annihilation
Positron annihilation from rest
Bremsstrahlung
Pair production
A method of summing matrix elements over spin states
Effects of screening of the coulomb field in atoms
Interaction of Several Electron
Derivation of the "rules" of quantum electrodynamics
Electron-electron scattering
Discussion and Interpretation of Various "Correction" Terms
Electron-electron interaction
Electron-positron interaction
Positronium
Two-photon exchange between electrons and/or positrons
Self-energy of the electron
Method of integration of integrals appearing in quantum electrodynamics
Self-energy integral with an external potential
Scattering in an external potential
Resolution of the fictitious "infrared catastrophe"
Another approach to the infrared difficulty
Effect on an atomic electron
Closed-loop processes, vacuum polarization
Scattering of light by a potential
Pauli Principle and the Dirac Equation
Reprints
Summary of Numerical Factors for Transition Probabilities, Phys. Rev., 84, 123 (1951)
The Theory of Positrons. Phys. Rev., 76, 749–759 (1949)
Space-Time Approach to Quantum Electrodynamics. Phys. Rev., 76, 769–789 (1949)