A White Noise Approach to the Feynman Integrand for Electrons in Random Media

TL;DR

This paper rigorously constructs a Feynman integrand for electrons in random media using white noise analysis, enabling precise calculations of quantum propagators and density of states in one dimension.

Contribution

It provides a mathematically rigorous realization of the Feynman integrand in one dimension via white noise analysis, refining Wick formulas and establishing exponential self-intersection local times.

Findings

Derived a rigorous Feynman integrand in 1D

Established existence of exponential self-intersection local times

Provided a formula for the propagator with identical start and end points

Abstract

Using the Feynman path integral representation of quantum mechanics it is possible to derive a model of an electron in a random system containing dense and weakly-coupled scatterers, see [Proc. Phys. Soc. 83, 495-496 (1964)]. The main goal of this paper is to give a mathematically rigorous realization of the corresponding Feynman integrand in dimension one based on the theory of white noise analysis. We refine and apply a Wick formula for the product of a square-integrable function with Donsker's delta functions and use a method of complex scaling. As an essential part of the proof we also establish the existence of the exponential of the self-intersection local times of a one-dimensional Brownian bridge. As result we obtain a neat formula for the propagator with identical start and end point. Thus, we obtain a well-defined mathematical object which is used to calculate the density of states, see e.g. [Proc. Phys. Soc. 83, 495-496 (1964)].