What is it about?
The consequences of quantizing the Fokker-Wheeler-Feynman model of electrodynamics, treating the Lagrangian via its acceleration-dependent (1/c) power-series representation, is examined using recently validated methods. An exact treatment of this acceleration dependence yields, under certain circumstances, high-energy resonant modes. In the past, such modes have been assumed unphysical and have been removed by perturbative or order-reduction techniques. However, these modes appear to be of physical significance. This conclusion follows because this completely ab initio calculation, with no adjustable parameters, has a number of successes. It provides a description for resonances observed in the electron-positron emission from heavy-ion collisions, in particular, and in diproton collisions and, possibly, in other collision experiments as well.
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Why is it important?
Richard Feynman in the chapter "Monster Minds" of his auto-biography "Surely, you're joking Mr. Feynman" claimed that he could never get a quantum theory out of his "one half retarded, one half advanced" wave theory i.e. what we call the Fokker-Wheeler-Feynman (FWF) theory. Herein, we found a means of quantizing such systems. Since we are dealing with higher-order Lagrangians, we exploit the "Problem of Lagrange" or equivalently the Jacobi-Ostrogradsky coordinates to deal with the higher- order derivatives. The resonances were observed in Darmstadt and colloquially "The Darmstadt Monster".
Perspectives
As we found out later, although higher-order Lagrangians can aptly model chaotic behavior, it can also produce non-physical solutions. Unfortunately, although the "Darmstadt Monster" produced a lot of attempts to explain it, was never vindicated in USA labs. So this work remains unresolved.
Dr Tony Cyril Scott
RWTH-Aachen University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Quantization of second-order Lagrangians: The Fokker-Wheeler-Feynman model of electrodynamics, Physical Review A, October 1992, American Physical Society (APS),
DOI: 10.1103/physreva.46.3637.
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