Light-front-quantized QCD in Covariant Gauge

Technical Report · Thu Jun 17 04:00:00 EDT 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10096· OSTI ID:10096

Srivastava, Prem P ^[1]

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1. SLAC

The light-front (LF) canonical quantization of quantum chromodynamics in covariant gauge is discussed. The Dirac procedure is used to eliminate the constraints in the gauge-fixed front form theory quantum action and to construct the LF Hamiltonian formulation. The physical degrees of freedom emerge naturally. The propagator of the dynamical {psi}{sub +} part of the free fermionic propagator in the LF quantized field theory is shown to be causal and not to contain instantaneous terms. Since the relevant propagators in the covariant gauge formulation are causal, rotational invariance--including the Coulomb potential in the static limit--can be recovered, avoiding the difficulties encountered in light-cone gauge. The Wick rotation may also be performed allowing the conversion of momentum space integrals into Euclidean space forms. Some explicit computations are done in quantum electrodynamics to illustrate the equivalence of front form theory with the conventional covariant formulation. LF quantization thus provides a consistent formulation of gauge theory, despite the fact that the hyperplanes x{sup {+-}} = 0 used to impose boundary conditions constitute characteristic surfaces of a hyperbolic partial differential equation.

• Research Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00515
• OSTI ID: 10096
• Report Number(s): SLAC-PUB-8168
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
COULOMB FIELD
DEGREES OF FREEDOM
EUCLIDEAN SPACE
HAMILTONIANS
LIGHT CONE
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PROPAGATOR
QUANTIZATION
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS
ROTATION