Renormalization Theory Of Quantum Field Theory With A Cut Off

Renormalization Theory of Quantum Field Theory with a Cut-off

Ontological Aspects Of Quantum Field Theory

Quantum field theory (QFT) provides the framework for many fundamental theories in modern physics, and over the last few years there has been growing interest in its historical and philosophical foundations. This anthology on the foundations of QFT brings together 15 essays by well-known researchers in physics, the philosophy of physics, and analytic philosophy.Many of these essays were first presented as papers at the conference “Ontological Aspects of Quantum Field Theory”, held at the Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung (ZiF), Bielefeld, Germany. The essays contain cutting-edge work on ontological aspects of QFT, including: the role of measurement and experimental evidence, corpuscular versus field-theoretic interpretations of QFT, the interpretation of gauge symmetry, and localization.This book is ideally suited to anyone with an interest in the foundations of quantum physics, including physicists, philosophers and historians of physics, as well as general readers interested in philosophy or science.

Renormalization and Effective Field Theory

This book tells mathematicians about an amazing subject invented by physicists and it tells physicists how a master mathematician must proceed in order to understand it. Physicists who know quantum field theory can learn the powerful methodology of mathematical structure, while mathematicians can position themselves to use the magical ideas of quantum field theory in “mathematics” itself. The retelling of the tale mathematically by Kevin Costello is a beautiful tour de force. —Dennis Sullivan This book is quite a remarkable contribution. It should make perturbative quantum field theory accessible to mathematicians. There is a lot of insight in the way the author uses the renormalization group and effective field theory to analyze perturbative renormalization; this may serve as a springboard to a wider use of those topics, hopefully to an eventual nonperturbative understanding. —Edward Witten Quantum field theory has had a profound influence on mathematics, and on geometry in particular. However, the notorious difficulties of renormalization have made quantum field theory very inaccessible for mathematicians. This book provides complete mathematical foundations for the theory of perturbative quantum field theory, based on Wilson's ideas of low-energy effective field theory and on the Batalin–Vilkovisky formalism. As an example, a cohomological proof of perturbative renormalizability of Yang–Mills theory is presented. An effort has been made to make the book accessible to mathematicians who have had no prior exposure to quantum field theory. Graduate students who have taken classes in basic functional analysis and homological algebra should be able to read this book.