paper

The semiclassical propagator in field theory

arXiv:hep-ph/9906411 · doi:10.1016/S0370-2693(99)01169-7

Abstract

We consider scalar field theory in a changing background field. As an example we study the simple case of a spatially varying mass for which we construct the semiclassical approximation to the propagator. The semiclassical dispersion relation is obtained by consideration of spectral integrals and agrees with the WKB result. Further we find that, as a consequence of localization, the semiclassical approximation necessarily contains quantum correlations in momentum space.

Minor revisions, final version to be published in PLB. 10 pages and 3 figures

The semiclassical propagator in field theory · wovepaper