Infrared Gupta-Bleuler Quantum Electrodynamics: Solvable Models And Perturbative Expansion

TL;DR

This paper develops solvable models in infrared quantum electrodynamics to analyze soft-photon corrections in electron scattering, providing an operator formulation and comparing gauge invariance properties.

Contribution

It introduces two solvable Hamiltonian models for infrared QED, deriving M"oller operators and analyzing gauge invariance of low-energy radiative corrections.

Findings

Models reproduce soft-photon corrections accurately.

Operator formulation valid under non-relativistic and dipole approximations.

Discrepancy in gauge invariance explained for non-relativistic models.

Abstract

We study two Hamiltonian models, based on infrared approximations which render them solvable, in order to obtain an operator formulation of the soft-photon corrections to the scattering of a single electron, as given in Quantum Electrodynamics by the method of Feynman's diagrams. The first model is based on the same approximations of the Pauli-Fierz Hamiltonian, the second one stems from an expansion in powers of the four-momentum transfer, along the lines of Bloch and Nordsieck. For both models, the dynamics of the charge is accounted for by suitably chosen classical currents, interacting with the quantum e.m. potential. M\"oller operators, preserving respectively the Hilbert scalar product, for the Coulomb-gauge formulation of the models, and an indefinite metric, for the formulation of the models in the Feynman-Gupta-Bleuler gauge, are obtained in the presence of an infrared cutoff, with the help of suitable renormalization counterterms. We show that the soft-photon corrections to the electron scattering under consideration are reproduced by suitable matrix elements of the M\"oller operators pertaining to the model "of the Bloch-Nordsieck type", both in the FGB gauge and in the Coulomb gauge. Further, we prove that if one assumes that the charged particle is non relativistic and employs a dipole approximation, the resulting low-energy radiative corrections admit an operator formulation as well, in terms of the M\"oller operators of the model "of Pauli-Fierz type", but lack the invariance property with respect to the gauge employed in their calculation. The reason why such a discrepancy occurs is finally traced back in full generality, also in connection with the Gupta-Bleuler formulation of non-relativistic models.