Infrared multiphoton resummation in quantum electrodynamics

Abstract

Infrared singularities in massless gauge theories are known since the foundation of quantum field theories. The root of this problem can be tracked back to the very definition of these long-range interacting theories such as QED. It can be shown that singularities are caused by the massless degrees of freedom (i.e. the photons in the case of QED). In the Bloch-Nordsieck model the absence of the infrared catastrophe can be shown exactly by the complete summation of the radiative corrections. In this paper we will give the idea of the derivation of the Bloch-Nordsieck propagator, that describes the infrared structure of the electron propagation, at zero and finite temperatures. Some ideas of the possible applications are also mentioned.