A Note on Polarization Vectors in Quantum Electrodynamics

A photon of momentum k can have only two polarization states, not three. Equivalently, one can say that the magnetic vector potential A must be divergence free in the Coulomb gauge. These facts are normally taken into account in QED by introducing two polarization vectors epsilon_\lambda(k) with lambda in {1,2}, which are orthogonal to the wave-vector k. These vectors must be very discontinuous functions of k and, consequently, their Fourier transforms have bad decay properties. Since these vectors have no physical significance there must be a way to eliminate them and their bad decay properties from the theory. We propose such a way here.Comment: 6 pages late

Analytic Perturbation Theory and Renormalization Analysis of Matter Coupled to Quantized Radiation

For a large class of quantum mechanical models of matter and radiation we develop an analytic perturbation theory for non-degenerate ground states. This theory is applicable, for example, to models of matter with static nuclei and non-relativistic electrons that are coupled to the UV-cutoff quantized radiation field in the dipole approximation. If the lowest point of the energy spectrum is a non-degenerate eigenvalue of the Hamiltonian, we show that this eigenvalue is an analytic function of the nuclear coordinates and of $\alpha^{3/2}$, $\alpha$ being the fine structure constant. A suitably chosen ground state vector depends analytically on $\alpha^{3/2}$ and it is twice continuously differentiable with respect to the nuclear coordinates.Comment: 47 page

On the Smooth Feshbach-Schur Map

A new variant of the Feshbach map, called smooth Feshbach map, has been introduced recently by Bach et al., in connection with the renormalization analysis of non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics. We analyze and clarify its algebraic and analytic properties, and we generalize it to non-selfadjoint partition operators $\chi$ and \chib.Comment: 8 page