Functional integration is a collection of results in mathematics and physics where the domain of an integral is no longer a region of space, but a space of functions. Functional integrals arise in probability, in the study of partial differential equations, and in the path integral approach to the quantum mechanics of particles and fields.
In an ordinary integral (in the sense of Lebesgue integration) there is a function to be integrated (the integrand) and a region of space over which to integrate the function (the domain of integration). The process of integration consists of adding up the values of the integrand for each point of the domain of integration. Making this procedure rigorous requires a limiting procedure, where the domain of integration is divided into smaller and smaller regions. For each small region, the value of the integrand cannot vary much, so it may be replaced by a single value. In a functional integral the domain of integration is a space of functions. For each function, the integrand returns a value to add up. Making this procedure rigorous poses challenges that continue to be topics of current research.
Functional integration was developed by Percy John Daniell in an article of 1919 and Norbert Wiener in a series of studies culminating in his articles of 1921 on Brownian motion. They developed a rigorous method (now known as the Wiener measure) for assigning a probability to a particle's random path. Richard Feynman developed another functional integral, the path integral, useful for computing the quantum properties of systems. In Feynman's path integral, the classical notion of a unique trajectory for a particle is replaced by an infinite sum of classical paths, each weighted differently according to its classical properties.
Functional integration is central to quantization techniques in theoretical physics. The algebraic properties of functional integrals are used to develop series used to calculate properties in quantum electrodynamics and the standard model of particle physics.
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Functional integration is a collection of results in mathematics and physics where the domain of an integral is no longer a region of space, but a space of functions. Functional integrals arise in probability, in the study of partial differential equations, and in the path integral approach to the quantum mechanics of particles and fields. In an ordinary integral (in the sense of Lebesgue integration) there is a function to be integrated (the integrand) and a region of space over which to integrate the function (the domain of integration).
The path integral formulation is a description in quantum mechanics that generalizes the action principle of classical mechanics. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique classical trajectory for a system with a sum, or functional integral, over an infinity of quantum-mechanically possible trajectories to compute a quantum amplitude. This formulation has proven crucial to the subsequent development of theoretical physics, because manifest Lorentz covariance (time and space components of quantities enter equations in the same way) is easier to achieve than in the operator formalism of canonical quantization.
In physics, action is a scalar quantity describing how a physical system has changed over time (its dynamics). Action is significant because the equations of motion of the system can be derived through the principle of stationary action. In the simple case of a single particle moving with a constant velocity (uniform linear motion), the action is the momentum of the particle times the distance it moves, added up along its path; equivalently, action is twice the particle's kinetic energy times the duration for which it has that amount of energy.
Introduction to the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. Derivation of the perturbation expansion of Green's functions in terms of Feynman diagrams. Several applications will be presented,
To introduce several advanced topics in quantum physics, including
semiclassical approximation, path integral, scattering theory, and
relativistic quantum mechanics
The course builds on the two previous courses on the subject. The main subject is the study of quantum field theories at the loop level. The course introduces the concept of loop divergences and renor
Explores the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis in quantum systems, emphasizing the random matrix theory and the behavior of observables in thermal equilibrium.
A functional integration approach – whose main ingredient is the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation – for the quantum nonrelativistic many-fermion problem is investigated. With this method, the groun