Boundary Effects in Bosonic and Fermionic Field Theories

Abstract

The dynamics of quantum field theories on bounded domains requires the introduction of boundary conditions on the quantum fields. We address the problem from a very general perspective by using charge conservation as a fundamental principle for scalar and fermionic quantum field theories. Unitarity arises as a consequence of the choice of charge preserving boundary conditions. This provides a powerful framework for the analysis of global geometrical and topological properties of the space of physical boundary conditions. Boundary conditions which allow the existence of edge states can only arise in theories with a mass gap which is also a physical requirement for topological insulators.