I'm reading a book in QFT and the first thing tackled is the quantization of the Klein Gordon Field. The classical Klein Gordon field satisfies the partial differential equation
(∂μ∂μ+m2)ϕ=0⟹(∂2t−∇2+m2)ϕ=0.
Taking the Fourier transform we get
(∂2t+ω2p)ˆϕ=0,
where now ω2p=p2+m2. In other words ˆϕ(p,t) satisfies the simple harmonic oscilator equation of motion for each fixed p. In this case we have
ϕ(x,t)=∫d3p1(2π)3ˆϕ(p,t)eix⋅p.
That is fine, and is all classical. Now, we want to quantize the field. As the book explains, quantizing the field means promoting ϕ(x,t) to an operator, such that
[ϕ(x),ϕ(y)]=[π(x),π(y)]=0,
[ϕ(x),π(y)]=(2π)3δ(y−x).
in the same way as we do with position X and momentum P in quantum mechanics.
Now, to do this the author uses the ladder operators from the quantum harmonic oscilator. In that case if X and P are position and momentum, the ladder oerators satisfies
X=1√2ω(a+a†),P=−i√ω2(a−a†).
The author by analogy with this, then says that
ϕ(x)=∫d3p1(2π)31√2ωp(apeix⋅p+a†pe−ix⋅p)
Now this is not at all clear to me. My main issues are:
- First what leads to this expansion of the quantized field ϕ? I mean, my guess is that the author considered ˆϕ(p) behaves as the coordinate of a harmonic oscilator, so that we can write ˆϕ(p) in terms of ladder operators ap and ap†. However if that is done we would get
ϕ(x)=∫d3p1(2π)31√2ωp(ap+a†p)eix⋅p
This would be the analogy in my opinion, where we set ˆϕ(p) as the position of the harmonic oscilator. Why do we get (apeix⋅p+a†pe−ix⋅p) instead?
- If this analogy is being carried, why ˆπ(p) would be the momentum of the harmonic oscilator? I see no reason for this directly by the differential equation.
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