A variational calculation of particle-antiparticle bound states in the scalar Yukawa model

Abstract

We consider particle-antiparticle bound states in the scalar Yukawa (Wick-Cutkosky) model. The variational method in the Hamiltonian formalism of quantum field theory is employed. A reformulation of the model is studied, in which covariant Green's functions are used to solve for the mediating field in terms of the particle fields. A simple Fock-state variational ansatz is used to derive a relativistic equation for the particle-antiparticle states. This equation contains one-quantum-exchange and virtual-annihilation interactions. It is shown that analytic solutions of this equation can be obtained for the simplified case where only the virtual annihilation interaction is retained. More generally, numerical and perturbative solutions of the equation are obtained for the massive and massless-exchange cases. We compare our results with various Bethe-Salpeter-based calculations.