Scientific Realism without the Quantum

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Carl Hoefer
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Quantum Theories ◽  
Approximate Truth ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Contemporary Science

Scientific realists often say that there should be belief in the approximate truth of ‘our best scientific theories.’ It is hard to hear the phrase ‘our best scientific theories’ without thinking of quantum mechanics and quantum field theories. But as numerous chapters in this collection make clear, it is unclear that some experts even know how to make sense of being a realist about quantum theories. They provide recipes for calculating incredibly precise predictions for observations, but beyond the recipes, they do not seem to offer a clear-cut or unambiguous picture of what physical reality is like at the fundamental level. After giving an overview of the problems that beset any attempt to believe in the truth or approximate truth of quantum theories, Chapter 2 turns to the question of how to protect scientific realism from the ills of the quantum. The aim is to show that it is possible to quarantine the worst of those ills, freeing us to adopt a robustly realistic attitude toward many other extremely successful areas of contemporary science, such as (parts of) geology, microbiology, and chemistry. The quarantine barrier may be imperfect and permeable in places, but is strong enough (the chapter argues) to help the cause of scientific realism.

TOPOLOGICAL DUALITY BETWEEN REAL SCALAR AND SPINOR FIELDS IN QUANTUM FIELD THEORY, COSMOLOGY, QUANTUM THEORIES OF FUNDAMENTAL EXTENDED OBJECTS

1994 ◽  
Vol 09 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
YU. P. GONCHAROV
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Quantum Theories ◽  
Topological Duality ◽  
Real Scalar ◽  
Spinor Fields ◽  
The Given ◽  
Kaluza Klein

This survey is devoted to possible manifestations of remarkable topological duality between real scalar and spinor fields (TDSS) existing on a great number of manifolds important in physical applications. The given manifestations are demonstrated to occur within the framework of miscellaneous branches in ordinary and supersymmetric quantum field theories, supergravity, Kaluza-Klein type theories, cosmology, strings, membranes and p-branes. All this allows one to draw the condusion that the above duality will seem to be an essential ingredient in many questions of present and future investigations.

scholarly journals Formfactors of Relativistic Composite Particle Interactions in Unified Nonlinear Spinorfield Models

1985 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 752-773
Author(s):  
H. Stumpf
Keyword(s):  
Composite Particle ◽  
Particle Interaction ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Statistical Interpretation ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Mapping Procedure ◽  
Effective Dynamics ◽  
Rough Approximation

Unified nonlinear spinorfield models are self-regularizing quantum field theories in which all observable (elementary and non-elementary) particles are assumed to be bound states of fermionic preon fields. Due to their large masses the preons themselves are confined and below the threshold of preon production the effective dynamics of the model is only concerned with bound state reactions. In preceding papers a functional energy representation, the statistical interpretation and the dynamical equations were derived and the effective dynamics for preon-antipreon boson states and three preon-fermion states (with corresponding anti-fermions) was studied in the low energy limit. The transformation of the functional energy representation of the spinorfield into composite particle functional operators produced a hierarchy of effective interactions at the composite particle level, the leading terms of which are identical with the functional energy representation of a phenomenological boson-fermion coupling theory. In this paper these calculations are extended into the high energy range. This leads to formfactors for the composite particle interaction terms which are calculated in a rough approximation and which in principle are observable. In addition, the mathematical and physical interpretation of nonlocal quantum field theories and the meaning of the mapping procedure, its relativistic invariance etc. are discussed.

scholarly journals Categorification of algebraic quantum field theories

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Benini ◽  
Marco Perin ◽  
Alexander Schenkel ◽  
Lukas Woike
Keyword(s):  
Universal Algebra ◽  
Finite Groups ◽  
Physical Interpretation ◽  
Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Algebraic Quantum

AbstractThis paper develops a concept of 2-categorical algebraic quantum field theories (2AQFTs) that assign locally presentable linear categories to spacetimes. It is proven that ordinary AQFTs embed as a coreflective full 2-subcategory into the 2-category of 2AQFTs. Examples of 2AQFTs that do not come from ordinary AQFTs via this embedding are constructed by a local gauging construction for finite groups, which admits a physical interpretation in terms of orbifold theories. A categorification of Fredenhagen’s universal algebra is developed and also computed for simple examples of 2AQFTs.

scholarly journals Applying the Variational Principle to (1+1)-Dimensional Quantum Field Theories

2010 ◽  
Vol 105 (25) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutho Haegeman ◽  
J. Ignacio Cirac ◽  
Tobias J. Osborne ◽  
Henri Verschelde ◽  
Frank Verstraete
Keyword(s):  
Variational Principle ◽  
Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field

scholarly journals Signatures of Chaos in Nonintegrable Models of Quantum Field Theories

2021 ◽  
Vol 126 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miha Srdinšek ◽  
Tomaž Prosen ◽  
Spyros Sotiriadis
Keyword(s):  
Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field

GENERAL COVARIANCE, TOPOLOGICAL QUANTUM FIELD THEORIES AND FRACTIONAL STATISTICS

1992 ◽  
Vol 07 (02) ◽  
pp. 209-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. GAMBOA
Keyword(s):  
Hamiltonian Formalism ◽  
Field Theories ◽  
General Covariance ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Fractional Statistics ◽  
Multiply Connected ◽  
Topological Quantum ◽  
Gauge Fixing ◽  
Topological Quantum Field Theories

Topological quantum field theories and fractional statistics are both defined in multiply connected manifolds. We study the relationship between both theories in 2 + 1 dimensions and we show that, due to the multiply-connected character of the manifold, the propagator for any quantum (field) theory always contains a first order pole that can be identified with a physical excitation with fractional spin. The article starts by reviewing the definition of general covariance in the Hamiltonian formalism, the gauge-fixing problem and the quantization following the lines of Batalin, Fradkin and Vilkovisky. The BRST–BFV quantization is reviewed in order to understand the topological approach proposed here.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document