Liouville-Neumann Approach to the Nonperturbative Quantum Field Theory

Abstract

We present a nonperturbative field theoretic method based on the Liouville-Neumann (LN) equation. The LN approach provides a unified formulation of nonperturbative quantum fields and also nonequilibrium quantum fields, which makes use of mean-field type equations and whose results at the lowest level are identically the same as those of the Gaussian effective potential approach and the mean-field approach. The great advantageous point of this formulation is its readiness of applicability to time-dependent quantum systems and to finite temperature field theory, and its possibility to go beyond the Gaussian approximation.