Path integrals Definition and 57 Threads

Ok, I have a question about this Fade'ev Popov procedure of teasing out the ghosts when one quantizes a non-Abelian gauge theory with path integrals. The factor of 1 that people insert, for some gauge fixing function f, and some non-Abelian symmetry \mathcal{G} is: 1=\int \mathcal{D}U...

Hello all I need some special help concerning the path integrals and exactely about the techniques of Fradkin-Gitman and also the technique of Alexandrou et al., what's they're exactely about ?. (what does it mean here al. in "Alexandrou et al." ):smile: Thank you very much for every...

My QM prof skipped over the topic of the Feynman Path integral formulation... Is this material important enough that I should learn it on my own (personal curiosity aside)? The Text is Principles of Quantum Mechanics by R. Shankar

Let's suppose we have a theory with Lagrangian: \mathcal L_{0} + gV(\phi) where the L0 is a quadratic Lagrangian in the fields then we could calculate 'exactly' the functional integral: \int\mathcal D[ \phi ]exp(iS_{0}[\phi]/\hbar+gV(\phi)) where J(x) is a source then we could...

What exactly does a path integral measure? Is it area between the ends/bounds of the line? Or is it the length of the line? Just started complex analysis and am comletely confused by this.

It's always the easy questions that get me stuck... For some reason, I'm having a mental block on how to answer this one: Consider the force function: F = ix + jy Verify that it is conservative by showing that the integral, \int F \cdot dr is independent of the path of integration by...

I'm wondering if it is true that any surface can be equated to a weighted sum of a basis of surfaces differring only by genus? I think this is asking whether the path integral formulation for strings is more general. Thanks.