Approximations that matter: virtual particles as carriers of interactions.
In this paper we aim to develop an indispensability argument in support of the existence of virtual particles in scattering processes. In order to avoid the Paradox of Infinite Limits, which allegedly poses a challenge to scientific realism, one needs to de-idealize the fictitious systems introduced...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 205; no. 2; pp. 1 - 28 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Feb2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=182312992&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 182312992 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2025 vid: 205 iid: 2 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 182312992 10.1007/s11229-024-04881-9 ppf: 1 ppct: 27 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.8MB tig: atl: Approximations that matter: virtual particles as carriers of interactions. aug: au: Cangiotti, Nicolò Arioli, Gianni Valente, Giovanni affil: https://ror.org/01nffqt88 Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano, piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milan, Italy sug: keyword: Approximations Feynman diagrams Idealizations Infinite limits Virtual particles ab: In this paper we aim to develop an indispensability argument in support of the existence of virtual particles in scattering processes. In order to avoid the Paradox of Infinite Limits, which allegedly poses a challenge to scientific realism, one needs to de-idealize the fictitious systems introduced by the two limiting procedures employed in the perturbation scheme, namely the infinite expansion in Dyson series and the limits for negative and positive infinite times associated with the assumption of free particles. We show that these limits do not introduce essential idealizations, in agreement with scientific realism. What is more, according to our argument, unobservable virtual particles arise as essential approximations and they should be interpreted as propagators of the interaction responsible for subatomic scattering. As such, their existence is based on the use of approximations that matter. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2025. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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