Bosonic zero modes in discretized light-cone field theory

Abstract

It is shown that for theories with bosonic fields a constrained zero mode is a necessary ingredient for a consistent discretized light-cone quantization (DLCQ). Inclusion of this zero mode is shown to remove a non-covariant, quadratically divergent contribution to the fermion self-energy in 3+1 dimensional Yukawa theory which would otherwise be present. It is further shown to result in a fully consistent set of Heisenberg equations. The possibility of maintaining parity in DLCQ is discussed.