Functional Integration

Focuses on probabilistic foundations of the Feynman-Kac formula. Starting with main examples of Gaussian processes (the Brownian motion, the oscillatory process, and the Brownian bridge), this book presents four different proofs of the Feynman-Kac formula.

The program of the Institute covered several aspects of functional integration -from a robust mathematical foundation to many applications, heuristic and rigorous, in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. It included analytic and numerical computational techniques. One of the goals was to encourage cross-fertilization between these various aspects and disciplines. The first week was focused on quantum and classical systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom; the second week on field theories. During the first week the basic course, given by P. Cartier, was a presentation of a recent rigorous approach to functional integration which does not resort to discretization, nor to analytic continuation. It provides a definition of functional integrals simpler and more powerful than the original ones. Could this approach accommodate the works presented by the other lecturers? Although much remains to be done before answering "Yes," there seems to be no major obstacle along the road. The other courses taught during the first week presented: a) a solid introduction to functional numerical techniques (A. Sokal) and their applications to functional integrals encountered in chemistry (N. Makri). b) integrals based on Poisson processes and their applications to wave propagation (S. K. Foong), in particular a wave-restorer or wave-designer algorithm yielding the initial wave profile when one can only observe its distortion through a dissipative medium. c) the formulation of a quantum equivalence principle (H. Kleinert) which. given the flat space theory, yields a well-defined quantum theory in spaces with curvature and torsion.

This text takes advantage of recent developments in the theory of path integration and attempts to make a major paradigm shift in how the art of functional integration is practiced. The techniques developed in the work will prove valuable to graduate students and researchers in physics, chemistry, mathematical physics, and applied mathematics who find it necessary to deal with solutions to wave equations, both quantum and beyond. A Modern Approach to Functional Integration offers insight into a number of contemporary research topics, which may lead to improved methods and results that cannot be found elsewhere in the textbook literature. Exercises are included in most chapters, making the book suitable for a one-semester graduate course on functional integration.

In this text, Cartier and DeWitt-Morette, using their complementary interests and expertise, successfully condense and apply the essentials of Functional Integration to a great variety of systems, showing this mathematically elusive technique to be a robust, user friendly and multipurpose tool.

This book offers a concise introduction to quantum field theory and functional integration for students of physics and mathematics. Its aim is to explain mathematical methods developed in the 1970s and 1980s and apply these methods to standard models of quantum field theory. In contrast to other textbooks on quantum field theory, this book treats functional integration as a rigorous mathematical tool. More emphasis is placed on the mathematical framework as opposed to applications to particle physics. It is stressed that the functional integral approach, unlike the operator framework, is suitable for numerical simulations. The book arose from the author's teaching in Wroclaw and preserves the form of his lectures. So some topics are treated as an introduction to the problem rather than a complete solution with all details. Some of the mathematical methods described in the book resulted from the author's own research.

This book discusses some aspects of the theory of partial differential equations from the viewpoint of probability theory. It is intended not only for specialists in partial differential equations or probability theory but also for specialists in asymptotic methods and in functional analysis. It is also of interest to physicists who use functional integrals in their research. The work contains results that have not previously appeared in book form, including research contributions of the author.

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