The Heisenberg-Pauli canonical formalism of quantum field theory in the rigorous setting of nonlinear generalized functions (Part I)

Abstract

The unmodified Heisenberg-Pauli canonical formalism of quantum field theory applied to a self-interacting scalar boson field is shown to make sense mathematically in a framework of generalized functions adapted to nonlinear operations. The free-field operators, their commutation relations, and the free-field Hamiltonian operator are calculated by a straightforward transcription of the usual formalism expressed in configuration space. This leads to the usual results, which are essentially independent of the regularization, with the exception of the zero-point energy which may be set to zero if a particular regularization is chosen. The calculations for the self-interacting field are more difficult, especially because of the well-known problems due to the unboundness of the operators and their time-dependent domains. Nevertheless, a proper methodology is developed and a differentiation on time-dependent domains is defined. The Heisenberg equations and the interacting-field equation are shown to be mathematically meaningful as operator-valued nonlinear generalized functions, which therefore provide an alternative to the usual Bogoliubov-Wightman interpretation of quantized fields as operator-valued distributions. The equation for the time-evolution operator is proved using two different methods, but no attempt is made to calculate the scattering operator, and the applications to perturbation theory are left to a subsequent report.