Wednesday, December 11, 2019

scattering - There are two definitions of S operator (or S matrix) in quantum field theory. Are they equivalent?


I read several textbooks of QFT and found that there are two kinds of definition of $S$ operator (or S matrix).




  • First kind:



    Define $\hat{S}$ is map from out space to in space $$\hat{S}\left|\beta,\text{out}\right\rangle:=\left|\beta,\text{in}\right\rangle,$$ so that $$S_{\beta\alpha}:= \left \langle \beta,\text{out} | \alpha,\text{in}\right\rangle= \left \langle \beta,\text{out} \middle |\hat{S}\middle | \alpha,\text{out}\right\rangle= \left \langle \beta,\text{in}\middle |\hat{S}\middle | \alpha,\text{in}\right\rangle.$$ I understand that all these vectors are defined in the Heisenberg picture.




  • Second definition: $$S_{\beta\alpha}:={}_I \left \langle \beta \middle |\hat{S}\middle | \alpha \right\rangle_I$$ where subscript $_I$ means vector are in interacting picture. In this definition, then, $$\hat{S}=U_I(+\infty,-\infty),$$ where $U_I(+\infty,-\infty)$ is the evolution operator in interacting picture.




Are these two definitions equivalent? I am confused about it.


Remark: I konw that the matrix element $S_{\beta\alpha}$ is the same in these two pictures, what I want to ask is whether the operator $\hat{S}$ is same in these two definitions. Thanks!




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