On the Impossibility of a Poincare-invariant Vacuum State with Unit Norm

Jeremy Berkowitz

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arXiv · 0802.0216

On the Impossibility of a Poincare-invariant Vacuum State with Unit Norm

Jeremy Berkowitz

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Abstract

In the standard construction of Quantum Field Theory, a vacuum state is required. The vacuum is a vector in a separable, infinite-dimensional Hilbert space often referred to as Fock space. By definition the vacuum wavestate depends on nothing and must be translationally invariant. We show that any such translationally-invariant vector must have a norm that is either divergent or equal to zero. It is impossible for any state to be both everywhere translationally invariant and also have a norm of one. The axioms of QFT cannot be made internally consistent.

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Jeremy Berkowitz. 2008-02-07. On the Impossibility of a Poincare-invariant Vacuum State with Unit Norm. https://arxiv.org/abs/0802.0216

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