John R. Fanchi
Texas Christian University
Can particle appearance or disappearance be described by a quantum mechanical theory?
Abstract
A common justification for replacing quantum mechanics with quantum field theory (QFT) is that the appearance or disappearance of particles cannot be described using quantum mechanics? We demonstrate here that this justification for QFT is not true for parameterized relativistic quantum mechanics (pRQM). We present examples that show how pRQM can be applied to particle appearance or disappearance. We also show that the use of pRQM does not prohibit the use of parameterized quantum field theory (pQFT) by reviewing selected formulations of pQFT.