QED's Contradictions

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Introduction

  1. Richard Feynman, who is one of the founders of Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED), called it "the jewel of physics" for its extremely accurate predictions (see here ).
  2. A process called renormalization is an important element of QED, and Feynman described renormalization as a "dippy process" (see the previous link and [1]).
  3. An impartial observer wonders how can the jewel of physics be based on a dippy process? Furthermore, why this issue is not an important item on the current agenda of theoretical physics?
  4. On top of that, it should be realized that the experimental side retaliates and QED has already lost its accuracy reputation. See e.g. the electron and the muon measurements of the proton charge radius here .

An Explanation

Here is a short explanation which is understandable by physicists. It shows a fundamental error in the present QED structure.
  1. The parity of a real photon is odd and its helicity is 1 (see [2], pp. 213, 339).
  2. The parity of electromagnetic bound fields is even and their angular momentum vanishes. Indeed, examine the hydrogen atom ground state and use the following expression for the binding energy

    BE = -∫ψ† V ψ d3r. (1)

    Now, if the parity of the interaction V is odd then (1) vanishes identically. The same result is obtained if the angular momentum of the bound field is greater than zero.
  3. It follows that if bound fields are represented by a quantum particle then this particle is completely different from a real photon.
  4. The electromagnetic fields term of the QED Lagrangian density is

    ℒ = -F μν Fμν /16π (2)

    (see e.g. [2], p. 349). Here Fμν is the sum of bound fields and radiation fields. It follows that the presently accepted QED Lagrangian density combines effects of two completely different particles which differ by their intrinsic angular momentum and parity.
  5. This outcome means that the presently accepted version of QED violates parity conservation and angular momentum conservation as well. These QED features are inconsistent with well established experimental data.
  6. For reading an article that discusses these issues, click here .
References:

[1] R. P. Feynman, QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Penguin, London, 1990). (See p. 128.)

[2] S. Weinberg, The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vol. I, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995).