Asymptotic Quantum Dynamics of Ghost Fields
Abstract
The dressed propagator of a ghost coupled to ordinary fields develops a pair of complex conjugate poles in the first Riemann sheet above the multi-particle threshold. We study the implications of this pole structure for the asymptotic field and its negative-norm one-particle state. Within the operator formalism of local quantum field theory, we show that certain quadratic couplings between the ghost field and the composite field of the multi-particle state persist at asymptotic times. These induce quantum interference effects that render the negative-norm one-particle state non-orthogonal to a superposition of positive-norm multi-particle states. Consequently, no free asymptotic one-particle ghost state exists, while the true free asymptotic states have zero norm and hence vanishing localization probability. The real and imaginary parts of the complex mass admit a clear physical interpretation; in particular, the inverse imaginary part sets the timescale for the onset of non-orthogonality. A freely propagating ghost is therefore confined to time intervals much shorter than its inverse width, so that a detector can never observe an isolated ghost particle asymptotically. Open questions and potential applications are discussed in the conclusions.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{buoninfante2026asymptotic,
title = {{Asymptotic Quantum Dynamics of Ghost Fields}},
author = {Luca Buoninfante},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.29047},
eprint = {2605.29047},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.29047},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Asymptotic Quantum Dynamics of Ghost Fields
AU - Luca Buoninfante
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/02
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.29047
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.29047
AB - The dressed propagator of a ghost coupled to ordinary fields develops a pair of complex conjugate poles in the first Riemann sheet above the multi-particle threshold. We study the implications of this pole structure for the asymptotic field and its negative-norm one-particle state. Within the operator formalism of local quantum field theory, we show that certain quadratic couplings between the ghost field and the composite field of the multi-particle state persist at asymptotic times. These induce quantum interference effects that render the negative-norm one-particle state non-orthogonal to a superposition of positive-norm multi-particle states. Consequently, no free asymptotic one-particle ghost state exists, while the true free asymptotic states have zero norm and hence vanishing localization probability. The real and imaginary parts of the complex mass admit a clear physical interpretation; in particular, the inverse imaginary part sets the timescale for the onset of non-orthogonality. A freely propagating ghost is therefore confined to time intervals much shorter than its inverse width, so that a detector can never observe an isolated ghost particle asymptotically. Open questions and potential applications are discussed in the conclusions.
ER -