A Dirac sea pilot-wave model for quantum field theory

Abstract

We present a pilot-wave model for quantum field theory in which the Dirac sea is taken seriously. The model ascribes particle trajectories to all the fermions, including the fermions filling the Dirac sea. The model is deterministic and applies to the regime in which fermion number is superselected. This work is a further elaboration of work by Colin, in which a Dirac sea pilot-wave model is presented for quantum electrodynamics. We extend his work to non-electromagnetic interactions, we discuss a cut-off regularization of the pilot-wave model and study how it reproduces the standard quantum predictions. The Dirac sea pilot-wave model can be seen as a possible continuum generalization of a lattice model by Bell. It can also be seen as a development and generalization of the ideas by Bohm, Hiley and Kaloyerou, who also suggested the use of the Dirac sea for the development of a pilot-wave model for quantum electrodynamics.

41 pages, no figures, LaTex, v2 minor improvements and additions

References in corpus (7)

• Bohmian Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory
• On Galilean and Lorentz invariance in pilot-wave dynamics
• The "Unromantic Pictures" of Quantum Theory
• Quantum Hamiltonians and Stochastic Jumps
• A new pilot-wave model for quantum field theory
• On Superselection Rules in Bohm-Bell Theories
• Bell's Jump Process in Discrete Time

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Applied Bohmian Mechanics
• A minimalist pilot-wave model for quantum electrodynamics
• The Fundamentality of Fields
• Pilot-wave approaches to quantum field theory
• De Broglie-Bohm Quantum Mechanics
• Relationalism about mechanics based on a minimalist ontology of matter
• Positron Position Operators. I. A Natural Option
• Relativistic QFT from a Bohmian perspective: A proof of concept
• Simulating Nelsonian Quantum Field Theory
• On substantive Lorentz invariance and quantum theory
• Space-Time-Matter: Some Notes on the Localization Problem in Relativistic Quantum Theory