Calculating Vacuum Energies in Quantum Field Theory
Abstract
Description
A new approach to generalised Casimir type of problems is derived within the context of renormalisable quantum field theory (QFT). We study the simplest case of a massive fluctuating boson field coupled to a time-independent background potential. We use analytic properties of scattering data to compute the relevant Green's functions at imaginary momenta, which in turn yields a simple and efficient method to compute (one-loop) vacuum energy densities in QFT. Renormalisation is easily performed in the perturbative sector by identifying low order Feynman diagrams with the first few Born approximation to the Green's function. Numerical examples illustrate the efficiency of our approach.
Talk given at 6th Workshop on "Quantum Field Theory under the Influence of External Conditions" (QFEXT03), Norman, Oklahoma, 15-19 Sep. 2003. (8 pages LaTeX, 3 figures, uses Rinton-P9x6.cls)
Talk given at 6th Workshop on "Quantum Field Theory under the Influence of External Conditions" (QFEXT03), Norman, Oklahoma, 15-19 Sep. 2003. (8 pages LaTeX, 3 figures, uses Rinton-P9x6.cls)