Equivalence of classical Klein-Gordon field theory to correspondence-principle first quantization of the spinless relativistic free particle

Abstract

It has recently been shown that the classical electric and magnetic fields which satisfy the source-free Maxwell equations can be linearly mapped into the real and imaginary parts of a transverse-vector wave function which in consequence satisfies the time-dependent Schroedinger equation whose Hamiltonian operator is physically appropriate to the free photon. The free-particle Klein-Gordon equation for scalar fields modestly extends the classical wave equation via a mass term. It is physically untenable for complex-valued wave functions, but has a sound nonnegative conserved-energy functional when it is restricted to real-valued classical fields. Canonical Hamiltonization and a further canonical transformation maps the real-valued classical Klein-Gordon field and its canonical conjugate into the real and imaginary parts of a scalar wave function (within a constant factor) which in consequence satisfies the time-dependent Schroedinger equation whose Hamiltonian operator has the natural correspondence-principle relativistic square-root form for a free particle, with a mass that matches the Klein-Gordon field theory's mass term. Quantization of the real-valued classical Klein-Gordon field is thus second quantization of this natural correspondence-principle first-quantized relativistic Schroedinger equation. Source-free electromagnetism is treated in a parallel manner, but with the classical scalar Klein-Gordon field replaced by a transverse vector potential that satisfies the classical wave equation. This reproduces the previous first-quantized results that were based on Maxwell's source-free electric and magnetic field equations.