A persistent particle ontology for QFT in terms of the Dirac sea

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (forthcoming)
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Abstract

We show that the Bohmian approach in terms of persisting particles that move on continuous trajectories following a deterministic law can be literally applied to QFT. By means of the Dirac sea model – exemplified in the electron sector of the standard model neglecting radiation – we explain how starting from persisting particles, one is led to standard QFT employing creation and annihilation operators when tracking the dynamics with respect to a reference state, the so-called vacuum. Since on the level of wave functions, both formalisms are mathematically equivalent, this proposal provides for an ontology of QFT that includes a dynamics of individual processes, solves the measurement problem and explains the appearance of creation and annihilation events.

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2018-07-18

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Andrea Oldofredi
University of Lisbon

Citations of this work

A proposal for a minimalist ontology.Michael Esfeld - 2020 - Synthese 197 (5):1889-1905.
Super-Humeanism: A starving ontology.Dustin Lazarovici - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 64:79-86.

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