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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access originally published online on July 16, 2009
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2009 60(3):585-609; doi:10.1093/bjps/axp027
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© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Against Field Interpretations of Quantum Field Theory

David John Baker

Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan djbaker{at}umich.edu


  Abstract

I examine some problems standing in the way of a successful `field interpretation' of quantum field theory. The most popular extant proposal depends on the Hilbert space of `wavefunctionals.' But since wavefunctional space is unitarily equivalent to many-particle Fock space, two of the most powerful arguments against particle interpretations also undermine this form of field interpretation.

  1. Introduction
  2. Field Interpretations and Field Operators
  3. The Wavefunctional Interpretation
  4. Fields and Inequivalent Representations
    4.1 The Rindler representation
    4.2 Spontaneous symmetry breaking
    4.3 Coherent representations

  5. The Fate of Fields in Interacting QFT
  6. Conclusions


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