A Investigation of the Feynman Path Integral Formulation of Quantum Mechanics.

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.

Jean-Louis Basdevant

Walter Greiner

Brian C. Hall

Donald H. Kobe

Gauge invariance in both quantum and classical mechanics is investigated using the Feynman path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. The Feynman path integral expresses the wave function in terms of the Lagrangian. A gauge transformation in classical mechanics is the addition of a total derivative of a gauge function to the Lagrangian. A gauge transformation of the second and first kind in quantum mechanics is obtained by adding and subtracting, respectively, a total derivative to the Lagrangian in the Feynman path integral.

Tal Hendel

Abstract The equation of motion in the standard formulation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, the Schrödinger equation, is based on the Hamiltonian. In contrast, in Feynman’s path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the equation of motion is the propagation equation, which is based on the Lagrangian. That these two different equations of motion are equivalent was shown by Feynman, who provided a derivation of the Schrödinger equation from the propagation equation. Surprisingly, however, while in classical mechanics there exists a simple relationship between the Hamiltonian and the Lagrangian, there is nothing in Feynman’s derivation that gives any indication of this relationship. Here I show that the equations of motion in the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formulations of quantum mechanics are, in fact, simply related to each other.