The Functional Integral on the Half Line

Oct, 1989
20 pages
Published in:
  • Int.J.Mod.Phys.A 5 (1990) 3029-3052
Report number:
  • MIT-CTP-1795

Citations per year

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Abstract: (WSP)
A quantum Hamiltonian, defined on the half-line, will typically not lead to unitary time evolution unless the domain of the Hamiltonian is carefully specified. Different choices of the domain result in different Green’s functions. For a wide class of non-relativistic Hamiltonians we show how to define the functional integral on the half-line in a way which matches the various Green’s functions. To do so we analytically continue, in time, functional integrals constructed with real measures that give weight to paths on the half-line according to how much time they spend near the origin.