Lectures on quantum electrodynamics
By: by Sein Htoon.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Journal Publication Committee, Myanmar Academy of Arts and Science
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Yangon, Myanmar
Language: eng
Format: Monograph:Paper
Number of pages: 140
Description: This work is based on graduate course that the author gave   at Rangoon (Yangon) University between 1994 and 2006 . Dirac realised while going through his unpublished notes in May 1963 (M Jammer 1966 "The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics" New York:McGraw-Hill) that some of the ideas he rejected previously could now be instrumental in resolving the divergence difficulties in QED. In his 1963/64 lectures on quantum field theory given at Yeshiva University he was able to present a novel derivation of the Schwinger term and of the Lamb shift using the Hamiltonian formalism that he had developed in 1950's (Dirac 1950 Can J Math  vol 2, 129;1951 Can J Math vol 3,1). This field theoretical approach had earlier  helped Dirac and other physicists to discuss the problem of quantization of the gravitational field besides bringing it  closer to the other branches of physics (B S DeWitt 1967 Phys Rev vol 160, 113). We have chosen the field theoretical approach à la  Dirac since it is nearest to the approach adopted by French and Weisskopf who were the first to work on the Lamb shift problem of the hydrogen atom and who obtained the first correct result for the Lamb shift. French and Weisskopf (1949 Phys Rev vol 75, 1240) were using Dirac's hole theory for fermions which could be easily generalized to quantum theory of fields in terms of creation and annihilation operators. For sometime Feynman and Schwinger did not deem it necessary to use such operators in their calculations. As a direct consequence these two brilliant physicists made the joining mistake and the mistake with the Uehling term (vacuum polarization) leading to incorrect results in their initial computation of the Lamb shift. Since the incorrect results of Feynman and Schwinger did not agree with their (correct!) result, French and Weisskopf  did not dare to publish their results earlier (S S Schweber 1994  "QED and the Men who made It" Princeton:PUP). Bethe,Feynman,Schwinger and many American physicists were successfully doing physics without recourse to formal quantum field theory. Feynman and Schwinger did not get " their numbers right" in their Lamb shift work  at first but their confidence in themselves eventually won them a share in the 1965 Nobel prize for physics. In reality it was French and Weisskopf who first obtained the correct result followed by Kroll and Lamb .  Both of the two papers by these authors , however , were not included in the collected papers on QED edited by Schwinger in 1958 (“ Quantum Electrodynamics” New York: Dover).
Dyson wrote in 1993 (Physics World August p33) that"it is remarkable  among the "wonderful papers " in the volume 73 of 1948 Phys Rev , the paper by Dirac is the only one concerned with  quantum field theory. Dirac was the voice from another world ".  Even in 1933 that Dirac had a more complete understanding of the situation than his contemporaries can be seen from his letter to Niels Bohr (Pais A 1990 in "Reminisences of a Great Physicist" Ed Kursunoglu & Wigner Cambridge:CUP) "Peierls and I have been looking into the question of the change in the distribution of negative energy electrons ( meaning vacuum) produced by a static electric field. We find that this changed distribution causes a partial neutralization of the charge (charge renormalization) producing the field. If we neglect the distribution that the field produces in negative energy electrons (vacuum polarization) with energies less than  -137mc^2 ( -137x electron rest mass energy), the neutralization of the charge (charge renormalization)  produced by other negative energy electrons is small and is of the order of 136/137. The effective charges (physical charges) are what one measures in all the low energy experiments and the experimentally determined value of e must be the effective charge (physical charge) on an electron, the real value (bare charge) being slightly bigger [e+delta(e)] ". In October 1933 he also provided the general expression for the finite contribution to the vacuum polarization which was evaluated for an electron moving in a hydrogen-like atom by Uehling in 1935. Recall, if you will, that the troublesome vacuum polarization term created problems for both Schwinger and Feynman  -initially (S S Schweber 1994  "QED and the Men who made It" Princeton:PUP).
Notes: "A Myanmar Academy of Arts and Science tenth anniversary (1999-2009) publication."

Errata slip tipped in at end.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-133) and index.
Table of contents: label: Chapter I Elements of quantum mechanics (1-21); title: 1
label: 1.0 Introduction; title: 1
label: 1.1 The inverse of a square matrix A; title: 1
label: 1.2 The Hermitian of matrix B; title: 1
label: 1.3 The self adjoint operator; title: 2
label: 1.4 Expectation value of self adjoint operator; title: 2
label: 1.5 Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Dirac's delta function; title: 4
label: 1.6 Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Fourier space; title: 5
label: 1.7  X-ray diffraction from helices in Fourier space; title: 11
label: 1.8 Time independent perturbation theory; title: 14
label: 1.9 Time dependent perturbation theory; title: 17
label: 1.10 Quantum theory of scattering; label: Chapter II Elements of quantum field theory (33-48); title: 33
label: 2.1 Introduction; title: 35
label: 2.2 The boson case; title: 36
label: 2.3 The fermion case; title: 38
label: 2.4 The kets and bras as spinors; title: 40
label: 2.5 A model Hamiltonian of electrons and phonons; title: 43
label: 2.6 The ground state of a superconductor; title: 46
label: 2.7 The excited state of a superconductor; title: 48
label: 2.8 The s-state energy levels of charmonium; label: Chapter III  Relativistic quantum mechanics (54-66); title: 54
label: 3.0 Introduction; title: 55
label: 3.1 The Dirac equation; title: 57
label: 3.2 The negative energy states and the positron; title: 57
label: 3.3 The creation and annihilation operators; title: 62
label: 3.4 A model Hamiltonian for fermions; title: 66
label: 3.5 Second quantization of the Dirac equation; label: Chapter IV Hamiltonian form of quantum field theory (71-75); title: 71
label: 4.0 Introduction; title: 71
label: 4.1 The three dimensional spacelike surface; title: 72
label: 4.2 The generalized Hamiltonian formalism; title: 75
label: 4.3 The scalar meson field; title: 75
label: 4.4 The vector meson field; label: Chapter V Quantum electrodynamics : the Lamb shift and the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron in the hydrogen atom (81-117); title: 81
label: 5.0 Introduction; title: 88
label: 5.1 The anomalous magnetic moment of the electron; title: 97
label: 5.2 The Lamb shift; title: 99
label: 5.3 The nonrelativistic term; title: 103
label: 5.4 The relativistic term; title: 113
label: 5.5 The total Lamb shift; title: 114
label: 5.6 The Feynman diagrams; title: 117
label: 5.7 The computation of the Lamb shift; label: Appendices; title: 118
label: 1 Quantum mechanical values of various powers of r; title: 120
label: 2 Vacuum polarization in quantum electrodynamics; title: 130
label: 3 General relativity and quantum field theory; title: 131
label: References; title: 134
label: Index; label: Errata