Zur Theorie der Emission langwelliger Lichtquanten. Offprint from: Il Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1938. THE INFRA-RED CATASTROPHE

PAULI, Wolfgang & FIERZ, Markus

Publication Date: 1938

About this Item

First edition, very rare offprint, of Pauli and Fierz's attempt to avoid the 'infra-red catastrophe'. For the problem in which an electron interacts with a charged particle with the emission of a single photon, quantum electrodynamics predicts that the probability that the photon has frequency in the range f to f + df is proportional to df/f. When this is integrated over all values of f to find the total probability, the integral becomes infinite due to the singularity at f = 0: this is the 'infra-red catastrophe'. Bloch and Nordsieck had previously addressed the problem in a paper published in 1937. Not satisfied with Bloch and Nordsieck's results, Pauli and his assistant Fierz set out to rework the problem more rigorously. "Their methods demonstrate a new direction in quantum electrodynamics" (Miller, Early Quantum Electrodynamics: A Source Book, p. 82). "Pauli and Fierz, in a classic paper in 1938, further clarified the connection between Bloch and Nordsieck's and the classical description of the infrared radiation. A freely moving electron is accompanied by its appropriate electromagnetic fields. In the classical theory these attached fields correspond to the Lienard-Wiechert potentials . . . in QED the attached photons give rise to these electric and magnetic fields. As an important byproduct of their analysis, Pauli and Fierz, in their nonrelativistic model of 1938, recognized that the fields which accompany the charged particle react back on it to produce an electromagnetic mass. They identified the sum of the particle's mechanical mass and of its electromagnetic mass with the observed, experimental mass of the electron. Kramers at precisely this same period attempted to give a formulation of the quantum electrodynamics of extended nonrelativistic charged particles in which the structure and finite extension of the particles would not appear explicitly . . . The concept of mass renormalization in QED has its origins in these researches of Pauli and Fierz and of Kramers" (Schweber, QED and the Men Who Made It, p. 89). Miller, Source Book in Early Quantum Electrodynamics, 9. 8vo, pp. 167-188. Original printed wrappers.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1677778191682

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Zur Theorie der Emission langwelliger Lichtquanten. Offprint from: Il Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1938. THE INFRA-RED CATASTROPHE
• Publication Date: 1938
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine