Perturbation Theory for Path Integrals of Stiff Polymers

The wormlike chain model of stiff polymers is a nonlinear $\sigma$-model in one spacetime dimension in which the ends are fluctuating freely. This causes important differences with respect to the presently available theory which exists only for periodic and Dirichlet boundary conditions. We modify this theory appropriately and show how to perform a systematic large-stiffness expansions for all physically interesting quantities in powers of $L/\xi$, where $L$ is the length and $\xi$ the persistence length of the polymer. This requires special procedures for regularizing highly divergent Feynman integrals which we have developed in previous work. We show that by adding to the unperturbed action a correction term ${\cal A}^{\rm corr}$, we can calculate all Feynman diagrams with Green functions satisfying Neumann boundary conditions. Our expansions yield, order by order, properly normalized end-to-end distribution function in arbitrary dimensions $d$, its even and odd moments, and the two-point correlation function

Light Front Quantization

An introductory overview on Light-Front quantization, with some emphasis on recent achievements, is given. Light-Front quantization is the most promising and physical tool to study deep inelastic scattering on the basis of quark gluon degrees of freedom. The simplified vacuum structure (nontrivial vacuum effects can only appear in zero-mode degrees of freedom) and the physical basis allows for a description of hadrons that stays close to intuition. Recent progress has ben made in understanding the connection between effective LF Hamiltonians and nontrivial vacuum condesates. Discrete Light-Cone Quantization, the transverse lattice and Light-Front Tamm-Dancoff (in combination with renormalization group techniques) are the main tools for exploring LF-Hamiltonians nonperturbatively.Comment: LATEX, 87 pages, postscript files for the figures or a postscript file for the complete article (900 kB) available from the autho