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In S-matrix theory, the S-matrix relates the infinite past to the infinite future in one step, without being decomposable into intermediate steps corresponding to time-slices. This program was very influential in the 1960s, because it was a plausible substitute for quantum field theory , which was plagued with the zero interaction phenomenon at ...
S-matrix theorists sought to understand the strong interaction by using the analytic properties of the scattering matrix to calculate the interactions of bound-states without assuming that there is a point-particle field theory underneath. The S-matrix approach did not provide a local space-time description.
The initial elements of S-matrix theory are found in Paul Dirac's 1927 paper "Über die Quantenmechanik der Stoßvorgänge". [1] [2] The S-matrix was first properly introduced by John Archibald Wheeler in the 1937 paper "On the Mathematical Description of Light Nuclei by the Method of Resonating Group Structure". [3]
Henry Pierce Stapp (born March 23, 1928, in Cleveland, Ohio) [1] is an American mathematical physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly the development of axiomatic S-matrix theory, the proofs of strong nonlocality properties, and the place of free will in the "orthodox" quantum mechanics of John von Neumann.
The S-matrix describes the amplitude for a process with an initial state evolving into a final state .If the initial and final states consist of two clusters, with and close to each other but far from the pair and , then the cluster decomposition property requires the S-matrix to factorize
This is how Gabriele Veneziano and many others constructed string theory, which remains the only theory constructed from general consistency conditions and mild assumptions on the spectrum. Many in the bootstrap community believed that field theory, which was plagued by problems of definition, was fundamentally inconsistent at high energies.
String theory represents an outgrowth of S-matrix theory, [1] a research program begun by Werner Heisenberg in 1943 [2] following John Archibald Wheeler's 1937 introduction of the S-matrix. [3] Many prominent theorists picked up and advocated S-matrix theory, starting in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.
The transition amplitude is then given as the matrix element of the S-matrix between the initial and final states of the quantum system. Feynman used Ernst Stueckelberg's interpretation of the positron as if it were an electron moving backward in time. [3] Thus, antiparticles are represented as moving backward along the time axis in Feynman ...