The Principle of Stationary Variance in Quantum Field Theory

Abstract

The principle of stationary variance is advocated as a viable variational approach to quantum field theory. The method is based on the principle that the variance of energy should be at its minimum when the state of a quantum system reaches its best approximation for an eigenstate. While not too much popular in quantum mechanics, the method is shown to be valuable in quantum field theory, and three special examples are given in very different areas ranging from Heisenberg model of antiferromagnetism to quantum electrodynamics and gauge theories.

References in corpus (7)

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• Gaussian Effective Potential and superconductivity
• Self-consistent variational approach to the minimal left-right symmetric model of electroweak interactions
• Gaussian effective potential for the standard model SU(2)xU(1) electroweak theory
• A general interpolation scheme for thermal fluctuations in superconductors
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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Analytical study of Yang-Mills theory in the infrared from first principles
• Analytic structure of QCD propagators in Minkowski space
• The gluon propagator in Feynman gauge by the method of stationary variance
• Second order gluon polarization for SU(N) theory in linear covariant gauge
• Variational study of mass generation and deconfinement in Yang-Mills theory
• The Nielsen identities in screened theories
• Analytic continuation and physical content of the gluon propagator
• Screened massive expansion of Schwinger-Dyson equations
• The Dark Side of the Propagators: exploring their analytic properties by a massive expansion
• Screened massive expansion of the quark propagator in the Landau gauge