The polygonal path formulation of the Feynman path integral

Herbert W. Hamber

Wataru Ichinose

Maurice M. Mizrahi

Antoine Royer

The direct transformation from the polygonal to the Fourier series representation of Feynman path integrals, via a change of integration variables, is effected explicitly for cases where the Lagrangian is of the form L(x,ẋ,t)= 1/2 ẋ2−V(x,t). This transformation involves a ‘‘functional Jacobian’’ stemming solely from the velocity term in the Lagrangian; this is because N-segment polygonal paths of the type contributing significantly to the integral, and their N-term Fourier series approximants, coalesce together as N→∞, but not their derivatives. We also consider integrals over paths with fixed means T−1∫T0 dt x(t) =const. The usefulness of the Fourier representation is illustrated with the harmonic oscillator case V(x)= 1/2 ω2x2, in both the free and fixed means situations; in particular, the Fourier evaluation of the path integrals trivially determines the large time phases (Maslov indices), and the ranges of ω2 values for which the integrals are finite or infinite in the imaginary time cases.

Patrick Muldowney

R. Feynman formulated quantum mechanics in terms of integrals over spaces of paths (Feynman path integrals). But the absolute value of Feynman's integrand is not integrable. And his integrand does not generate a measure. So Lebesgue integration theory could not be used by Feynman. To establish the equivalence of his theory with the traditional formulation of quantum mechanics, Feynman gave an argument that his path integral satisfies Schrödinger's equation. This paper gives a proof of this part of Feynman's theory. To justify Feynman's and other investigators' use of the language and concepts of integration and probability theory, and to justify taking limits under the integral sign in Feynman's integral, we use R. Henstock's approach to non-absolute integration, which does not require the measure concept, and for which the absolute value of the integrand need not be integrable.