We calculate the three- and four-loop corrections to the massless fermion propagator in three-dimensional quenched Quantum Electrodynamics with four-component fermions. The three-loop correction is finite and gauge invariant but the four-loop one has singularities except in the Feynman gauge where it is also finite. Our results explicitly show that, up to four loops, gauge-dependent terms are completely determined by lower order ones in agreement with the Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transformation.
The true variables in QED are the transverse photon components and Dirac's physical electron, constructed out of the fermionic field and the longitudinal components of the photon. We calculate the propagators in terms of these variables to one loop and demonstrate their gauge invariance. The physical electron propagator is shown not to suffer from infrared divergences in any gauge. In general, all physical Green's functions are gauge invariant and infrared-finite.
We study unquenched QED in four dimensions using renormalised Schwinger-Dyson equations and focus on the behaviour of the fermion and photon propagators. For this purpose we use an improved Kizilersu-Pennington (KP) vertex which respects gauge invariance, multiplicative renormalizability for the massless case, agrees with perturbation theory in the weak coupling regime and is free of kinematic singularities. We find that the KP vertex performs very well as expected specially in comparison with other vertex choices. We find that the Landau pole problem familiar from perturbative QED persists in…
The infrared behaviour of the gauge-invariant dressed fermion propagator in massless QED_3 is discussed for three choices of dressing. It is found that only the propagator with the isotropic (in three Euclidean dimensions) choice of dressing is acceptable as the physical fermion propagator. It is explained that the negative anomalous dimension of this physical fermion does not contradict any field-theoretical requirement.
In principle, calculation of a full Green's function in any field theory requires knowledge of the infinite set of multi-point Green's functions, unless one can find some way of truncating the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson equations. For the fermion and boson propagators in QED this requires an {\it ansatz} for the full three point vertex. Here we illustrate how the properties of gauge invariance, gauge covariance and multiplicative renormalizability impose severe constraints on this fermion-boson interaction, allowing a consistent truncation of the propagator equations. We demonstrate how the…
With the introduction of a spectral representation, the Schwinger-Dyson equation (SDE) for the fermion propagator is formulated in Minkowski space in QED. After imposing the on-shell renormalization conditions, analytic solutions for the fermion propagator spectral functions are obtained in four dimensions with a renormalizable version of the Gauge Technique anzatz for the fermion-photon vertex in the quenched approximation in the Landau gauge. Despite the limitations of this model, having an explicit solution provides a guiding example of the fermion propagator with the correct analytic struc…
We study renormalized quenched strong-coupling QED in four dimensions in arbitrary covariant gauge, in the Dyson-Schwinger equation formalism. Above the chiral critical coupling, we show that there is no finite chiral limit. This behaviour is found to be independent of the detailed choice of proper vertex, provided that the vertex is consistent with the Ward-Takahashi identity and multiplicative renormalizability. The finite solutions previously reported lie in an unphysical regime of the theory with multiple solutions and oscillating mass functions. This study is consistent with the assertion…
We study the dimensionally regularized fermion propagator Dyson-Schwinger equation in quenched nonperturbative QED in an arbitrary covariant gauge using the Curtis-Pennington vertex and perform nonperturbative renormalization numerically. The nonperturbative fermion propagator is solved in D=4-2*epsilon < 4 dimensional Euclidean space for a large number of values of epsilon for two values of the coupling, alpha=0.6 and alpha=1.5. Results for D=4 are then obtained by extrapolation to epsilon=0. We compare these results against previous studies employing a modified ultraviolet cut-off regulariza…
We evaluate the fermion propagator in parity-conserving QED_3 with N flavours, in the context of an IR domain approximation. This provides results which are non-perturbative in the loopwise expansion sense. We include fermion-loop effects, and show that they are relevant to the chiral symmetry breaking phenomenon, that can be understood in this context.
We derive constraints on the non-perturbative 3-point fermion-boson transverse vertex in massless QED3 from its perturbative calculation to order $α$. We also check the transversality condition to two loops and evaluate the fermion propagator to the same order. We compare a conjecture of the non-perturbative vertex by Burden and Tjiang against our results and comment on its draw backs. Our calculation calls for the need to construct a non-perturbative form for the fermion-boson vertex which agrees with its perturbative limit to ${\cal O}(α)$.
For massless quenched QED in three dimensions, we evaluate a non-perturbative expression for the fermion propagator which agrees with its two loop perturbative expansion in the weak coupling regime. This calculation is carried out by making use of the Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transformations. Any improved construction of the fermion-boson vertex must make sure that the solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the fermion propagator reproduces this result. For two different gauges, we plot the fermion propagator against momentum. We then make a comparison with a similar plot, using the ea…
We study the gauge-covariance of the massless fermion propagator in reduced Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). Starting from its value in some gauge, we evaluate an all order expression for it in another gauge by means of the Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transformation. We find that the weak coupling expansions thus derived are in perfect agreement with the exact calculations. We also prove that the fermion anomalous dimension of reduced QED is gauge invariant to all orders of perturbation theory except for the first one.
We extend a previous Landau-gauge study of subtractive renormalization of the fermion propagator Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSE) in strong-coupling, quenched QED_4 to arbitrary covariant gauges. We use the fermion-photon proper vertex proposed by Curtis and Pennington with an additional correction term included to compensate for the small gauge-dependence induced by the ultraviolet regulator. We discuss the chiral limit and the onset of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in the presence of nonperturbative renormalization. We extract the critical coupling in several different gauges and find evi…
We study the gauge covariance of the fermion propagator in Maxwell-Chern-Simons planar quantum electrodynamics (QED$_3$) considering four-component spinors with parity-even and parity-odd mass terms both for fermions and photons. Starting with its tree level expression in the Landau gauge, we derive a non perturbative expression for this propagator in an arbitrary covariant gauge by means of its Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transformation (LKFT). We compare our findings in the weak coupling regime with the direct one-loop calculation of the two-point Green function and observe perfect agreement …
A recently proposed regularization-independent method is used for the first time to solve the renormalized fermion Schwinger-Dyson equation numerically in quenched QED$_4$. The Curtis-Pennington vertex is used to illustrate the technique and to facilitate comparison with previous calculations which used the alternative regularization schemes of modified ultraviolet cut-off and dimensional regularization. Our new results are in excellent numerical agreement with these, and so we can now conclude with confidence that there is no residual regularization dependence in these results. Moreover, from…
Minkowski structure of the Fermion propagator in QED$_{2+1}$ is evaluated using dispersion like method Including massive fermion loop to the photon spectral function there is no infrared divergences in the gauge d=-1.Screening effects suppress the chiral order parmeter for small numbers of fermion flavour N.We evaluate the order parameter as a function of coupling constant c and N.There exsists a critical region where the chiral symmetry is dynamically broken.
We study the gauge-covariance of the massless fermion propagator in three-dimensional quenched Quantum Electrodynamics in the framework of dimensional regularization in d=3-2\ep. Assuming the finiteness of the quenched perturbative expansion, that is the existence of the limit \ep \to 0, we state that, exactly in d=3, all odd perturbative coefficients, starting with the third order one, should be zero in any gauge.
We study the dimensionally regularized fermion propagator Dyson-Schwinger equation in quenched nonperturbative QED. We work in arbitrary covariant gauge and perform nonperturbative renormalization numerically. The nonperturbative fermion propagator is solved in D = 4 - 2 * epsilon dimensional Euclidean space for a large number of values of epsilon. Results for D=4 dimensions are then obtained by extrapolation to epsilon = 0. Here we present results using the Curtis-Penningon fermion-photon proper vertex for two values of the coupling, namely alpha=0.6 and alpha=1.5, and compare these to previo…
We compute the two-loop fermion self-energy in massless reduced quantum electrodynamics (RQED) for an arbitrary gauge in the case where the photon field is three-dimensional and the fermion field two-dimensional: super-renormalizable RQED$_{3,2}$ with $N_F$ fermions. We find that the theory is infrared finite at two-loop and that finite corrections to the fermion propagator have a remarkably simple form.
We explore the dependence of fermion propagators on the covariant gauge fixing parameter in quantum electrodynamics (QED) with the number of spacetime dimensions kept explicit. Gauge covariance is controlled by the the Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transformation (LKFT). Utilizing its group nature, the LKFT for a fermion propagator in Minkowski space is solved exactly. The special scenario of 3D is used to test claims made for general cases. When renormalized correctly, a simplification of the LKFT in 4D has been achieved with the help of fractional calculus.
We discuss the one loop effects of massless fermion fields on the low energy vector brane-to-brane propagators in the framework of two QED brane-world scenarios. We show that one loop photon brane-to-brane propagator has a power law pathologic IR divergences in the 5D QED brane-world model with gap between the vector zero mode and continuous states. We also find that bulk fermions do not give rise to IR divergences in a photon brane-to-brane Green's function at least at the one loop level in the framework of 6D QED brane model with gapless mass spectrum between vector zero mode and higher stat…
In this paper we study dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in dimensionally regularized quenched QED within the context of Dyson-Schwinger equations. In D < 4 dimensions the theory has solutions which exhibit chiral symmetry breaking for all values of the coupling. To begin with, we study this phenomenon both numerically and, with some approximations, analytically within the rainbow approximation in the Landau gauge. In particular, we discuss how to extract the critical coupling alpha_c = pi/3 relevant in four dimensions from the D dimensional theory. We further present analytic results for the…
To remove the linear infrared divergences in quenched approximation we include the massive fermion loop to the photon spectral function.Spectral function of fermion has no one particle singularity if we fix the anomalous dimension to be unity.In the case of $N$ flavour,$N$ dependence of order parameter is mild which may be due to screening effects.
The spectrum of collective fermionic excitations in a finite temperature QED_{3+1} is studied in different regimes. It is shown that within the standard perturbation approach the one-loop dispersion equation, besides the ordinary one-particle excitation, has four new solutions. The additional excitations are gauge-dependent and two of them have nonphysical signs of residues in the propagator poles. The temperature evolution of the solutions is investigated and it is shown that the use of effective propagators leaves no more than one additional mode which becomes propagating at $T \bolpor 10M$,…
We discuss the influence of closed Dirac strings on the photon propagator in the Landau gauge emerging from a study of the compact U(1) gauge model in 2+1 dimensions. This gauge also minimizes the total length of the Dirac strings. Closed Dirac strings are stable against local gauge-fixing algorithms only due to the torus boundary conditions of the lattice. We demonstrate that these left-over Dirac strings are responsible for the previously observed unphysical behavior of the propagator of space-like photons (D_T) in the deconfinement (high temperature) phase. We show how one can monitor the n…
We study the gauge dependence of the fermion propagator in quenched QED3 with and without dynamical symmetry breaking in the light of its Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin Transformation (LKFT). In the former case, starting with the massive bare propagator in the Landau gauge, we obtain non perturbative propagator in an arbitrary covariant gauge. At the one-loop level it yields exact wavefunction renormalization and correct $(αξ)$ terms for the mass fuction. Also, we obtain valuable information for the higher order perturbative expansion of the propagator. As for the case of dynamical chiral symmetry…
We use the modified propagator for quantum field based on a ``principle of path integral duality" proposed earlier in a paper by Padmanabhan to investigate several results in QED. This procedure modifies the Feynman propagator by the introduction of a fundamental length scale. We use this modified propagator for the Dirac particles to evaluate the first order radiative corrections in QED. We find that the extra factor of the modified propagator acts like a regulator at the Planck scales thereby removing the divergences that otherwise appear in the conventional radiative correction calculations…
Non perturbative studies of Schwinger-Dyson equations (SDEs) require their infnite, coupled tower to be truncated in order to reduce them to a practically solvable set. In this connection, a physically acceptable ansatz for the three point vertex is the most favorite choice. Scalar quantum electrodynamics (sQED) provides a simple and neat platform to address this problem. The most general form of the three point scalar-photon vertex can be expressed in terms of only two independent form factors, a longitudinal and a transverse one. Ball and Chiu have demonstrated that the longitudinal vertex i…
Quantum electrodynamics in three dimensions in the bispinor formulation is considered. It is shown that the Dyson-Schwinger equations for fermion and boson propagators may be self-consistently solved in the infrared domain if on uses the Salam's vertex function. The parameters defining the behavior of the propagators are found numerically for different values of coupling constant and gauge parameter. For weak coupling the approximated analytical solutions are obtained. The renormalized gauge boson propagator (transverse part) is shown in the infrared domain to be practically gauge independent.
The Gauge Technique has been applied to QED$_{2+1}$ in the quenched case with infrared subtraction. The behaviour of the fermion propagator near the threshold is then found to be \[ S(p)\to \frac{(γ\cdot p+m)}{(p^{2}-m^{2})}(\frac{p^{2}-m^{2}}{% 2m^{2}})^ζ\exp (-\frac{ης}{2}), \] where $ς=e^{2}/(4πm)$ and this is gauge invariant except the exponential factor. We also find a spectral function in the Landau and Yennie like gauge. The propagators $S(p)$ are expressed in terms of $Φ(z,1,ς)$ explicitly .The vacuum expectation value $< \overlineψψ>$ is gauge dependent . Thus dynamical mass generatio…
We borrow the minisuperspace approximation from Quantum Cosmology and the quenching approximation from QCD in order to derive a new form of the bosonic p-brane propagator. In this new approximation we obtain an exact description of both the collective mode deformation of the brane and the center of mass dynamics in the target spacetime. The collective mode dynamics is a generalization of string dynamics in terms of area variables. The final result is that the evolution of a p-brane in the quenched-minisuperspace approximation is formally equivalent to the effective motion of a particle in a sp…
We show that QED radiative corrections change the propagator of a charged Dirac particle so that it acquires a fractional anomalous exponent connected with the fine structure constant. The result is a nonlocal object which represents a particle with a roughened trajectory whose fractal dimension can be calculated. This represents a significant shift from the traditional Wigner notions of asymptotic states with sharp well-defined masses. Non-abelian long-range fields are more difficult to handle, but we are able to calculate the effects due to Newtonian gravitational corrections. We suggest a n…
We study the interplay between topological observables and chiral and Higgs transitions in lattice scalar QED with quenched fermions. Emphasis is put on the chiral transition line and magnetic monopole percolation at strong gauge coupling. We confirm that at infinite gauge coupling the chiral transition is described by mean field exponents. We find a rich and complicated behaviour at the endpoint of the Higgs transition line which hampers a satisfactory analysis of the chiral transition. We study in detail an intermediate coupling, where the data are consistent both with a trivial chiral trans…
The well-known physical equivalence drawn from hole theory is applied in this article. The author suggests to replace, in the part of Feynman diagram which cannot be fixed by experiments, each fermion field operator, and hence fermion propagator, by pairs of equivalent fermion field operators and propagators. The formulation of this article thus yields additional terms which reveal characteristic effects that have not been explored previously; such characteristic effects lead to the appearence of logarithmic running terms and that finite radiative corrections are directly obtained in calculati…
We apply the worldline formalism to amplitudes in scalar quantum electrodynamics (QED) involving open scalar lines, with an emphasis on their non-perturbative gauge dependence. At the tree-level, we study the scalar propagator interacting with any number of photons in configuration space as well as in momentum space. At one-loop we rederive, in an efficient way, the off-shell vertex in an arbitrary dimension and any covariant gauge. Generalizing the Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transformation (LKFT) for the non-perturbative propagator, we find simple non-perturbative transformation rules for arb…
In continuation of our earlier proposal for evaluating thermal effective actions, we determine the exact fermion propagator in 1+1 dimensional massive QED. This propagator is used to derive the finite temperature effective action of the theory which generates systematically all the one loop Feynman amplitudes calculated in thermal perturbation theory. Various aspects of the effective action including its imaginary part are discussed.
We examine the Dyson-Schwinger equation for the fermion propagator in quenched QED in three and four dimension based on spectral representation with vertex ansatz which preserves Ward-Takahashi Identity.An appropriate renormalization within dispersion integral smoothes the threshold behaviour of the fermion self energy in three dimension.Thus we avoid the infrared singurality in three dimension.The behaviour of the fermion propagator in three dimension near the threshold is then found to be similar to the four dimensional one.There exisit analytic solutions for arbitrary gauges and the full pr…
Recently, Gies and Karbstein showed that the two-loop Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian receives a finite one-particle reducible contribution in addition to the well-known one-particle irreducible one. Here, we demonstrate that a similar contribution exists for the propagator in a constant field already at the one-loop level, and we calculate this contribution for the scalar QED case. We also present an independent derivation of the Gies-Karbstein result using the worldline formalism, treating the scalar and spinor QED cases in a unified manner.
The worldline formalism has previously been used for deriving compact master formulas for the one-loop N-photon amplitudes in both scalar and spinor QED, and in the vacuum as well as in a constant external field. For scalar QED, there is also an analogous master formula for the propagator dressed with N photons in the vacuum. Here, we extend this master formula to include a constant field. The two-photon case is worked out explicitly, yielding an integral representation for the Compton scattering cross section in the field suitable for numerical integration in the full range of electric and ma…
We discuss the properties of the position space fermion propagator in three dimensional QED which has been found previouly based on Ward-Takahashi-identity for soft-photon emission vertex and spectral representation.There is a new type of mass singularity which governs the long distance behaviour.It leads the propagator vanish at large distance.This term corresponds to dynamical mass in position space.Our model shows confining property and dynamical mass generation for arbitrary coupling constant.Since we used dispersion retation in deriving spectral function there is a physical mass which set…
It is known that Noncommutative QED (NCQED) exhibits Gribov ambiguities in the Landau gauge. These ambiguities are related to zero modes of the Faddeev-Popov operator and arise in the ghost propagator when it has a pole. In this work, we establish a positive Faddeev-Popov operator for NCQED and the condition for the ghost propagator not to have poles, the so-called Gribov no-pole condition. This condition is implemented in the path integral, and allows for the calculation of the photon propagator in momentum space, which is dependent on the squared non-commutativity parameter. In the commutati…
We calculate and discuss the one-loop corrections to the photon sector of QED interacting to a background gravitational field. At high energies the fermion field can be taken as massless and the quantum terms can be obtained by integrating conformal anomaly. We present a covariant local expression for the corresponding effective action, similar to the one obtained earlier for the gravitational sector. At the moderate energies the quantum terms can be obtained through the heat kernel method. In this way we derive the exact one-loop beta-function for the electric charge in the momentum subtracti…
We consider properties of connected diagrams with fermion-photon interaction and such fermion and photon propagators and vertex function that the values of these diagrams are finite. We establish the properties of these propagators and vertex function that imply that these diagrams are invariant under C, P, T, CP, CT, PT, or CPT transformations up to some phase factor common to each process. We introduce eight new transformations related to Hermiticity and establish the conditions under which they leave the tree transition probabilities invariant. We determine such general Lorentz form-invaria…
There has been growing interest in studying the behaviour of QED in its strong coupling limit. The reason for this is not only that it serves as a simple prototype gauge theory for testing nonperturbative calculational techniques which one then goes on to apply to QCD, but also because the theory exhibits interesting behaviour in its own right. In particular, it now appears to be quite well established that QED breaks chiral symmetry dynamically as long as the coupling is sufficiently large. In this contribution we describe the progress made in applying the polaron variational approach to quen…
We determine the position space fermion propagator in three dimensional QED based on Ward-identity and spectral representation.There is a new type of mass singularity which governs the long distance behaviour.It leads the propagator vanish at large distance more stongly than the mass term does.This term corresponds to Dynamical mass.Momentum space proagator is compared with the analysis of Schwinger-Dyson equation and our solution contains a non-perubative effects beyond the quenched approximation with bare vertex.
The one-loop effective action of quantum electrodynamics in four dimensions is shown to be controlled by the Euclidean Dirac propagator $G$ in a background potential. After separating the photon self-energy and photon-photon scattering graphs from the effective action the remainder is known to be the logarithm of an entire function of the electric charge of order 4 under mild regularity assumptions on the potential. This input together with QED's lack of an ultrastable vacuum constrain the strong field behavior of $G$. It is shown that $G$ vanishes in the strong field limit. The relevance of t…
We have considered the two-point correlation of QED in worldline formalism. In position space it has been written in terms of heat kernel. This leads to introducing the $K_1$ function, which is related with the bulk-to-boundary propagator of massless scalar field and to reveal bulk-to-boundary propagator in the expression of photon polarization operator.
The gauge parameter dependence of QED in the covariant gauge can be determined explicitly by introducing a Stueckelberg field, which is a non-interacting fictitious Goldstone boson field. Examples of QED with electrons or charged scalars are discussed. Our results generalize the long known results on the gauge parameter dependence of the wave function renormalization constant and the electron propagator.
In this work we show how to construct the one-loop vacuum polarization for light-front QED$_{4}$ in the framework of the perturbative causal theory. Usually, in the canonical approach, it is considered for the fermionic propagator the so-called instantaneous term, but it is known in literature that this term is controversial because it can be omitted by computational reasons; for instance, by compensation or vanishing by dimensional regularization. In this work we propose a solution to this paradox. First, in the perturbative causal theory, it is shown that the fermionic propagator does not ha…
The validity of the ladder approximation (LA) in QCD and QED in the context of the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson (SD) equations and Slavnov-Taylor (ST) and Ward-Takahashi (WT) identities is investigated. In contrast to QED, in QCD bacause of color degrees of freedom the summation of the ladder diagrams within the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) integral equation for the quark-gluon vertex at zero momentum transfer on account of the corresponding ST identity does provide an an addition constraint on the quark SD equation itself. Moreover, the solution of the constraint equation requires the full quark prop…
We use the worldline representation for correlation functions together with numerical path integral methods to extract nonperturbative information about the propagator to all orders in the coupling in the quenched limit (small-$N_{\text{f}}$ expansion). Specifically, we consider a simple two-scalar field theory with cubic interaction (S${}^2$QED) in four dimensions as a toy model for QED-like theories. Using a worldline regularization technique, we are able to analyze the divergence structure of all-order diagrams and to perform the renormalization of the model nonperturbatively. Our method gi…
Following Feynman's successful treatment of the polaron problem we apply the same variational principle to quenched QED in the worldline formulation. New features arise from the description of fermions by Grassmann trajectories, the supersymmetry between bosonic and fermionic variables and the much more singular structure of a renormalizable gauge theory like QED in 3+1 dimensions. We take as trial action a general retarded quadratic action both for the bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom and derive the variational equations for the corresponding retardation functions. We find a simple an…
The $e^-$-$e^+$ bound state spectrum of QED3 is investigated in the quenched ladder approximation to the homogeneous Bethe-Salpeter equation with fermion propagators from a rainbow approximation Schwinger-Dyson equation. A detailed analysis of the analytic structure of the fermion propagator is performed so as to test the appropriateness of the methods employed. The large fermion mass limit of the Bethe-Salpeter equation is also considered, including a derivation of the Schrödinger equation, and comparisons made with existing non-relativistic calculations.
It is shown that, by means of canonical operator approach, the Ward-Takahashi identity (WTI) at finite temperature $T$ and finite chemical potential $μ$ for complete vectorial vertex and complete fermion propagator can be simply proven, rigorously for Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) and approximately for Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) where the ghost effect in the fermion sector is neglected. The WTI shown in the real-time thermal matrix form will give definite thermal constraints on the imaginary part of inverse complete Feynman propagator including self-energy for fermion and will play important…
A non-linear Schwinger-Dyson (SD) equation for the gauge boson propagator of massless QED in one time and two spatial dimensions is studied. It is shown that the nonperturbative solution leads to a nontrivial renormalization-group infrared fixed point quantitatively close to the one found in the leading order of the 1/N expansion, with N the number of fermion flavors. In the gauged Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (GNJL) model an equation for the Yukawa vertex is solved in an approximation given by the one-photon exchange and an analytic expression is derived for the propagator of the scalar fermion-antifer…
In order to understand QCD at the energies relevant to hadronic physics one requires analytical methods for dealing with relativistic gauge field theories at large couplings. Strongly coupled quenched QED provides an ideal laboratory for the development of such techniques, in particular as many calculations suggest that - like QCD - this theory has a phase with broken chiral symmetry. In this talk we report on a nonperturbative variational calculation of the electron propagator within quenched QED and compare results to those obtained in other approaches. We find surprising differences among t…
