Quantum Electrodynamics of Strong Fields

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XI

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

   Pages 1-25

3. The Wave Equation for Spin-1/2 Particles

   • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

   Pages 26-58

4. Dirac Particles in External Potentials

   • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

   Pages 59-91

5. The Hole Theory

   • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

   Pages 92-111

6. The Klein Paradox

   • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

   Pages 112-121

7. Resonant States in Supercritical Fields

   • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

   Pages 122-173

8. Quantum Electrodynamics of Weak Fields

   • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

   Pages 174-193

9. The Classical Dirac Field Interacting with a Classical Electromagnetic Field — Formal Properties

   • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

   Pages 194-211

10. Second Quantization of the Dirac Field and Definition of the Vacuum

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 212-256

11. Evolution of the Vacuum State in Supercritical Potentials

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 257-299

12. Superheavy Quasimolecules

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 300-312

13. The Dynamics of Heavy-Ion Collisions

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 313-344

14. Experimental Test of Supercritical Fields in Heavy-Ion Collisions

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 345-388

15. Vacuum Polarization

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 389-414

16. Vacuum Polarization: Arbitrarily Strong External Potentials

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 415-430

17. Many-Body Effects in QED of Strong Fields

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 431-469

18. Bosons Bound in Strong Potentials

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 470-483

19. Subcritical External Potentials

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 484-498

20. Overcritical Potential for Bose Fields

    • Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller, Johann Rafelski

    Pages 499-519

The fundamental goal of physics is an understanding of the forces of nature in their simplest and most general terms. Yet there is much more involved than just a basic set of equations which eventually has to be solved when applied to specific problems. We have learned in recent years that the structure of the ground state of field theories (with which we are generally concerned) plays an equally funda­ mental role as the equations of motion themselves. Heisenberg was probably the first to recognize that the ground state, the vacuum, could acquire certain prop­ erties (quantum numbers) when he devised a theory of ferromagnetism. Since then, many more such examples are known in solid state physics, e. g. supercon­ ductivity, superfluidity, in fact all problems concerned with phase transitions of many-body systems, which are often summarized under the name synergetics. Inspired by the experimental observation that also fundamental symmetries, such as parity or chiral symmetry, may be violated in nature, it has become wide­ ly accepted that the same field theory may be based on different vacua. Practical­ ly all these different field phases have the status of more or less hypothetical models, not (yet) directly accessible to experiments. There is one magnificent ex­ ception and this is the change of the ground state (vacuum) of the electron-posi­ tron field in superstrong electric fields.

• Dynamics
• Fields
• chiral symmetry
• electrodynamics
• field theory
• magnetism
• phase transition
• quantum electrodynamics
• synergetics

• Institut für Theoretische Physik, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Universität, Frankfurt/Main, Fed. Rep. of Germany

  Walter Greiner, Berndt Müller

• Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa

  Johann Rafelski

Policies and ethics