Quantum field theory of the bootstrap mechanism

Abstract

It is shown that a self-supporting mechanism operates in a conventional quantum field theory which fixes the coupling constants and mass ratios and reproduces the bootstrap mechanism of dispersion theory in some approximation. This self-supporting mechanism is closely related to the Z = 0 physics of composite elementary particles. A restatement of the concept of mass renormalization in other terms is shown to produce finite values for the masses of physical elementary particles in the limit where they become composite. Finiteness of the particle masses is the consequence of a resonance effect. The bootstrap mechanism of field theory and that of dispersion theory turn out to be equivalent to a field theory with direct Fermi interaction, the bare Fermi constant of which vanishes if the theory is to describe interacting particles of finite