Path integral polymer propagator of relativistic and non-relativistic particles

TL;DR

This paper adapts the path integral approach from loop quantum cosmology to mechanical systems within polymer quantum mechanics, deriving explicit propagators for nonrelativistic and relativistic particles and confirming their continuum limits.

Contribution

It introduces a vertex expansion form for polymer propagators of particles, including a new relativistic case, and demonstrates their reduction to standard forms in the continuum limit.

Findings

Polymer propagators match spectral method results for nonrelativistic particles.

Derived the polymer propagator for the relativistic particle.

Propagators reduce to standard quantum mechanics in the continuum limit.

Abstract

A recent proposal to connect the loop quantization with the spin foam model for cosmology via the path integral is hereby adapted to the case of mechanical systems within the framework of the so called polymer quantum mechanics. The mechanical models we consider are deparametrized and thus the group averaging technique is used to deal with the corresponding constraints. The transition amplitudes are written in a vertex expansion form used in the spin foam models, where here a vertex is actually a jump in position. Polymer propagators previously obtained by spectral methods for a nonrelativistic polymer particle, both free and in a box, are regained with this method and as a new result we obtain the polymer propagator of the relativistic particle. All of them reduce to their standard form in the continuum limit for which the length scale parameter of the polymer quantization is taken to be small. Our results are robust thanks to their analytic and exact character which in turn come from the fact that presented models are solvable. They lend support to the vertex expansion scheme of the polymer path integral explored before in a formal way for cosmological models. Some possible future developments are commented upon in the discussion.