Saturday, October 29, 2016

Conservation of quantum Noether current


The Noether current for a set of scalar fields $\varphi_a$ can classically be written as:


$$j^\mu(x)=\frac{\delta \mathcal L(x)}{\partial(\partial_{\mu}\varphi_a(x))}\delta \varphi_a(x)$$


The divergence of this current can then be written as: $$\partial_\mu j^\mu(x)=\delta \mathcal L(x)-\frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi_a(x)}\delta \varphi_a(x)$$


If the classical field equations are satisfied the second term on the right hand side vanishes. However in quantum theory the classical field equations are not satisfied. Why is the current still conserved for a symmetry in this case?




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