Quantum Mechanics_propagator

This article is about Quantum field theory. For plant propagation, see Plant
propagation.

In Quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, the propagator gives the probability
amplitude for a particle to travel from one place to another in a given time, or to travel
with a certain energy and momentum. In Feynman diagrams, which calculate the rate
of collisions in quantum field theory, virtual particles contribute their propagator to the
rate of the scattering event described by the diagram. They also can be viewed as the
inverse of the wave operator appropriate to the particle, and are therefore often
called Green's functions.

Non-relativistic propagators
In non-relativistic quantum mechanics the propagator gives the probability amplitude
for a particle to travel from one spatial point at one time to another spatial point at a
later time. It is the Green's function (fundamental solution) for the Schrödinger
equation. This means that, if a system has Hamiltonian H, then the appropriate
propagator is a function

satisfying

where Hx denotes the Hamiltonian written in terms of the x coordinates, δ(x)denotes

the Dirac delta-function, Θ(x) is the Heaviside step function and K(x,t;x',t')is
the kernel of the differential operator in question, often referred to as the propagator
instead of G in this context, and henceforth in this article. This propagator can also be
written as
where Û(t,t' ) is the unitary time-evolution operator for the system taking states at
time t to states at time t'.

The quantum mechanical propagator may also be found by using a path integral,

where the boundary conditions of the path integral include q(t)=x, q(t')=x' .
Here Ldenotes the Lagrangian of the system. The paths that are summed over move
only forwards in time.
In non-relativistic Quantum mechanics, the propagator lets you find the state of a
system given an initial state and a time interval. The new state is given by the equation

If K(x,t;x',t') only depends on the difference x−x' , this is a convolution of the initial
state and the propagator.

Basic Examples: Propagator of Free Particle and Harmonic Oscillator

For a time-translationally invariant system, the propagator only depends on the time
difference (t−t'), so it may be rewritten as

The propagator of a one-dimensional free particle, with the far-right expression

obtained via a saddle-point approximation,[1] is then

Similarly, the propagator of a one-dimensional quantum harmonic oscillator is

the Mehler kernel,

For the N-dimensional case, the propagator can be simply obtained by the product
Relativistic propagators
In relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory the propagators
areLorentz invariant. They give the amplitude for a particle to travel between
twospacetime points.

Scalar propagator
In quantum field theory the theory of a free (non-interacting) scalar field is a useful
and simple example which serves to illustrate the concepts needed for more
complicated theories. It describes spin zero particles. There are a number of possible
propagators for free scalar field theory. We now describe the most common ones.

Position space
The position space propagators are Green's functions for the Klein–Gordon equation.
This means they are functions G(x,y) which satisfy

where:
 are two points in Minkowski spacetime.

 is the d'Alembertian operator acting on the x coordinates.

 is the Dirac delta-function.
(As typical in relativistic quantum field theory calculations, we use units where
the speed of light, c, and Planck's reduced constant, ħ, are set to unity.)
We shall restrict attention to 4-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. We can perform
a Fourier transform of the equation for the propagator, obtaining

This equation can be inverted in the sense of distributions noting that the
equation xf(x)=1 has the solution

,
with ε implying the limit to zero. Below, we discuss the right choice of the sign arising
from causality requirements.

The solution is

where

is the 4-vector inner product.

The different choices for how to deform the integration contour in the above
expression lead to different forms for the propagator. The choice of contour is usually
phrased in terms of the integral.

The integrand then has two poles at

so different choices of how to avoid these lead to different propagators.

Causal propagator
Retarded propagator:

A contour going clockwise over both poles gives the causal retarded propagator. This
is zero if and are spacelike or if (i.e. if is to the future of ).
This choice of contour is equivalent to calculating the limit:

Here

is the proper time from to and is a Bessel function of the first kind. The
expression means causally precedes which, for Minkowski spacetime,
means
 and .
This expression can also be expressed in terms of the vacuum expectation value of
the commutator of the free scalar field operator,

where

is the Heaviside step function and

is the commutator.
Advanced propagator:

A contour going anti-clockwise under both poles gives the causal advanced
propagator. This is zero if and are spacelike or if (i.e. if is to the past
of ).
This choice of contour is equivalent to calculating the limit:

This expression can also be expressed in terms of the vacuum expectation value of
the commutator of the free scalar field. In this case,

Feynman propagator

A contour going under the left pole and over the right pole gives the Feynman
propagator.
This choice of contour is equivalent to calculating the limit (see Huang p. 30)
Here

where x and y are two points in Minkowski spacetime, and the dot in the exponent is
a four-vector inner product. H1(1) is a Hankel function and K1 is amodified Bessel
function.

This expression can be derived directly from the field theory as the vacuum
expectation value of the time-ordered product of the free scalar field, that is, the
product always taken such that the time ordering of the spacetime points is the same,

This expression is Lorentz invariant, as long as the field operators commute with one
another when the points x and y are separated by a spacelike interval.

The usual derivation is to insert a complete set of single-particle momentum states

between the fields with Lorentz covariant normalization, then show that theΘ functions
providing the causal time ordering may be obtained by a contour integral along the
energy axis if the integrand is as above (hence the infinitesimal imaginary part, to
move the pole off the real line).

The propagator may also be derived using the path integral formulation of quantum
theory.

Momentum space propagator

The Fourier transform of the position space propagators can be thought of as
propagators in momentum space. These take a much simpler form than the position
space propagators.
They are often written with an explicit term although this is understood to be a
reminder about which integration contour is appropriate (see above). This term is
included to incorporate boundary conditions and causality (see below).

For a 4-momentum the causal and Feynman propagators in momentum space are:

For purposes of Feynman diagram calculations it is usually convenient to write these

with an additional overall factor of (conventions vary).

Faster than light?

The Feynman propagator has some properties that seem baffling at first. In particular,
unlike the commutator, the propagator is nonzero outside of the light cone, though it
falls off rapidly for spacelike intervals. Interpreted as an amplitude for particle motion,
this translates to the virtual particle traveling faster than light. It is not immediately
obvious how this can be reconciled with causality: can we use faster-than-light virtual
particles to send faster-than-light messages?

The answer is no: while in classical mechanics the intervals along which particles and
causal effects can travel are the same, this is no longer true in quantum field theory,
where it is commutators that determine which operators can affect one another.
So what does the spacelike part of the propagator represent? In QFT the vacuumis an
active participant, and particle numbers and field values are related by anuncertainty
principle; field values are uncertain even for particle number zero. There is a
nonzero probability amplitude to find a significant fluctuation in the vacuum value of
the field if one measures it locally (or, to be more precise, if one measures an
operator obtained by averaging the field over a small region). Furthermore, the
dynamics of the fields tend to favor spatially correlated fluctuations to some extent.
The nonzero time-ordered product for spacelike-separated fields then just measures
the amplitude for a nonlocal correlation in these vacuum fluctuations, analogous to
an EPR correlation. Indeed, the propagator is often called a two-point correlation
function for the free field.

Since, by the postulates of quantum field theory, all observable operators commute
with each other at spacelike separation, messages can no more be sent through these
correlations than they can through any other EPR correlations; the correlations are in
random variables.

In terms of virtual particles, the propagator at spacelike separation can be thought of

as a means of calculating the amplitude for creating a virtual particle-antiparticle pair
that eventually disappear into the vacuum, or for detecting a virtual pair emerging
from the vacuum. In Feynman's language, such creation and annihilation processes are
equivalent to a virtual particle wandering backward and forward through time, which
can take it outside of the light cone. However, no causality violation is involved.

Propagators in Feynman diagrams

The most common use of the propagator is in calculating probability amplitudesfor
particle interactions using Feynman diagrams. These calculations are usually carried
out in momentum space. In general, the amplitude gets a factor of the propagator for
every internal line, that is, every line that does not represent an incoming or outgoing
particle in the initial or final state. It will also get a factor proportional to, and similar in
form to, an interaction term in the theory'sLagrangian for every internal vertex where
lines meet. These prescriptions are known as Feynman rules.
Internal lines correspond to virtual particles. Since the propagator does not vanish for
combinations of energy and momentum disallowed by the classical equations of
motion, we say that the virtual particles are allowed to be off shell. In fact, since the
propagator is obtained by inverting the wave equation, in general it will have
singularities on shell.

The energy carried by the particle in the propagator can even be negative. This can be
interpreted simply as the case in which, instead of a particle going one way,
its antiparticle is going the other way, and therefore carrying an opposing flow of
positive energy. The propagator encompasses both possibilities. It does mean that one
has to be careful about minus signs for the case of fermions, whose propagators are
not even functions in the energy and momentum (see below).
Virtual particles conserve energy and momentum. However, since they can be off shell,
wherever the diagram contains a closed loop, the energies and momenta of the virtual
particles participating in the loop will be partly unconstrained, since a change in a
quantity for one particle in the loop can be balanced by an equal and opposite change
in another. Therefore, every loop in a Feynman diagram requires an integral over a
continuum of possible energies and momenta. In general, these integrals of products
of propagators can diverge, a situation that must be handled by the process
of Renormalization.

Other theories
If the particle possesses spin then its propagator is in general somewhat more
complicated, as it will involve the particle's spin or polarization indices. The
momentum-space propagator used in Feynman diagrams for a Dirac field representing
the electron in Quantum electrodynamics has the form

where the are the gamma matrices appearing in the covariant formulation of the
Dirac equation. It is sometimes written, using Feynman slash notation,

for short. In position space we have:

This is related to the Feynman propagator by

where .
The propagator for a gauge boson in a Gauge theory depends on the choice of
convention to fix the gauge. For the gauge used by Feynman and Stueckelberg, the
propagator for a photon is

The propagator for a massive vector field can be derived from the Stueckelberg
Lagrangian. The general form with gauge parameter reads

With this general form one obtains the propagator in unitary gauge for , the
propagator in Feynman or 't Hooft gauge for and in Landau or Lorenz gauge
for There are also other notations where the gauge parameter is the inverse
of . The name of the propagator however refers to its final form and not necessarily
to the value of the gauge parameter.
Unitary gauge:

Feynman ('t Hooft) gauge:

Landau (Lorenz) gauge:

Related singular functions

The scalar propagators are Green's functions for the Klein–Gordon equation. There are
related singular functions which are important in quantum field theory. We follow the
notation in Bjorken and Drell.[2] See also Bogolyubov and Shirkov (Appendix A). These
function are most simply defined in terms of the vacuum expectation value of products
of field operators.

Solutions to the Klein–Gordon equation

Pauli–Jordan function
The commutator of two scalar field operators defines the Pauli–Jordan
function by[2]
with

This satisfies and is zero if .

Positive and negative frequency parts (cut propagators)

We can define the positive and negative frequency parts of , sometimes
called cut propagators, in a relativistically invariant way.

This allows us to define the positive frequency part:

,
and the negative frequency part:
.
These satisfy[2]

and

Auxiliary function
The anti-commutator of two scalar field operators defines function by

with

This satisfies

Green's functions for the Klein-Gordon equation

The retarded, advanced and Feynman propagators defined above are all Green's
functions for the Klein-Gordon equation. They are related to the singular functions
by[2]


where
References
1. ^ Saddle point approximation, planetmath.org
2. ^ a b c d Bjorken and Drell, Appendix C
 Bjorken, J.D., Drell, S.D., Relativistic Quantum Fields (Appendix C.), New York:
McGraw-Hill 1965, ISBN 0-07-005494-0.
 N. N. Bogoliubov, D. V. Shirkov, Introduction to the theory of quantized fields,
Wiley-Interscience, ISBN 0-470-08613-0 (Especially pp. 136–156 and Appendix
A)
 Edited by DeWitt, Cécile and DeWitt, Bryce, Relativity, Groups and Topology,
section Dynamical Theory of Groups & Fields, (Blackie and Son Ltd, Glasgow),
Especially p615-624, ISBN 0-444-86858-5
 Griffiths, David J., Introduction to Elementary Particles, New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1987. ISBN 0-471-60386-4
 Griffiths, David J., Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Upper Saddle River:
Prentice Hall, 2004. ISBN 0-131-11892-7
 Halliwell, J.J., Orwitz, M. Sum-over-histories origin of the composition laws of
relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum cosmology, arXiv:gr-qc/9211004
 Huang, Kerson, Quantum Field Theory: From Operators to Path Integrals (New
York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1998), ISBN 0-471-14120-8
 Itzykson, Claude, Zuber, Jean-Bernard Quantum Field Theory, New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1980. ISBN 0-07-032071-3
 Pokorski, Stefan, Gauge Field Theories, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987. ISBN 0-521-36846-4 (Has useful appendices of Feynman diagram rules,
including propagators, in the back.)
 Schulman, Larry S., Techniques & Applications of Path Integration, Jonh Wiley &
Sons (New York-1981) ISBN 0-471-76450-7

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