Parametric quantum electrodynamics

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the study of Schwinger parametric Feynman integrals in quantum electrodynamics. Using a variety of tools from combinatorics and graph theory, significant simplification of the integrand is achieved. After a largely self-contained introduction to Feynman graphs and integrals, the derivation of the Schwinger parametric representation from the standard momentum space integrals is reviewed in full detail for both scalar theories and quantum electrodynamics. The derivatives needed to express Feynman integrals in quantum electrodynamics in their parametric version are found to contain new types of graph polynomials based on cycle and bond subgraphs. Then the tensor structure of quantum electrodynamics, products of Dirac matrices and their traces, is reduced to integer factors with a diagrammatic interpretation of their contraction. Specifically, chord diagrams with a particular colouring are used. This results in a parametric integrand that contains sums of products of cycle and bond polynomials over certain subsets of such chord diagrams. Further study of the polynomials occurring in the integrand reveals connections to other well-known graph polynomials, the Dodgson and spanning forest polynomials. This is used to prove an identity that expresses some of the very large sums over chord diagrams in a very concise form. In particular, this leads to cancellations that massively simplify the integrand.