A primer on null-plane quantization

Silas Beane (New Hampshire/Bonn)

I will start out by describing the inherent ambiguity (pointed out by Dirac) which exists in the description of the dynamics of relativistic quantum mechanical systems.  Then I will focus on one particular "form" of dynamics: that in which null planes are used as initial surfaces. This is sometimes called the front form (or light front).  In this case, relativistic systems in d dimensions look like nonrelativistic systems in d-1 dimensions.  In particular, the so-called vacuum state, which we are used to thinking of as highly complex, particularly in strongly-coupled field theories, is trivial, as in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. (I will assume that the audience has at least a modest acquaintance with the Schrödinger equation.)

(Seminarraum II)