Abstract
A free-scalar field satisfying a wave equation with any number of time derivatives is expanded in terms of creation and annihilation operators that are quantized by replacing the classical Poisson brackets of Ostrogradski by the commutator. Regardless of the coefficients in the wave equation, various algebraic identities make it possible to explicitly carry out the quantization, construct the Hamiltonian, and evaluate the propagator. There are always states of negative norm. A wave equation whose highest time derivative is order 2 N can have N single-particle states with positive, real energy. Of these, the number of negative-norm states will be N/2 if N is even and ( N−1)/2 if N is odd.
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