On the quantum electrodynamics of moving bodies

Abstract

A new synthesis of the principles of relativity and quantum mechanics is developed by replacing the Poincaré group for the de Sitter one. The new relativistic quantum mechanics is an indefinite mass theory which is reduced to the standard theory on the mass shell. The charge conjugation acquires a geometrical meaning and the Stueckelberg interpretation for antiparticles naturally arises in the formalism. So the idea of the Dirac sea in the second quantized formalism proves to be superfluous. The off-shell theory is free from ultraviolet divergences, which only appear in the process of mass shell reduction.