What Can We Learn from QED at Large Couplings?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the electron propagator in strongly coupled quenched QED using nonperturbative variational methods, revealing unexpected differences compared to other approaches, to gain insights relevant for understanding QCD at large couplings.

Contribution

It introduces a nonperturbative variational approach to analyze quenched QED at large couplings, highlighting discrepancies with existing methods.

Findings

Surprising differences among various calculation results

Insights into chiral symmetry breaking in quenched QED

Potential implications for understanding QCD at strong coupling

Abstract

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 these results.