Deckert, Dirk-André and Esfeld, Michael and Oldofredi, Andrea (2016) A persistent particle ontology for QFT in terms of the Dirac sea. [Preprint]

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Abstract

We show that the Bohmian approach in terms of persisting particles that move on continuous trajectories following a deterministic law can be literally applied to QFT. By means of the Dirac sea model – exemplified in the electron sector of the standard model neglecting radiation – we explain how starting from persisting particles, one is led to standard QFT employing creation and annihilation operators when tracking the dynamics with respect to a reference state, the so-called vacuum. Since on the level of wave functions, both formalisms are mathematically equivalent, this proposal provides for an ontology of QFT that includes a dynamics of individual processes, solves the measurement problem and explains the appearance of creation and annihilation events.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Deckert, Dirk-André deckert@math.lmu.de Esfeld, Michael Michael-Andreas.Esfeld@unil.ch Oldofredi, Andrea Andrea.Oldofredi@unil.ch
Keywords:	Quantum field theory, Dirac sea, particle ontology, Bohmian mechanics, vacuum, particle creation and annihilation
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory
Depositing User:	Michael Esfeld
Date Deposited:	18 Aug 2016 20:21
Last Modified:	18 Aug 2016 20:21
Item ID:	12375
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory
Date:	18 August 2016
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/12375

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