Notwithstanding the success of QED, around 1960 Quantum Field Theory (QFT), not managing to deal with strong and weak interactions, fell into a very serious crisis. The bootstrap approach, based on the centrality of the S matrix and on the hope that the consistency conditions dictated by unitarity, analyticity, crossing, symmetries and Regge behaviour could determine the scattering amplitudes, was then proposed as an alternative paradigm. Despite initial success and further theoretical developments the bootstrap program was losing momentum, when in 1968 a significant reprise was stimulated by Veneziano’s dual resonance model and by the birth of string theory. Internal consistency problems led however to a dismissal of the approach around 1973, when it had already become clear that it was possible to formulate field theories of the weak and strong interactions. After the appearance of the quark model (1964) and of the Glashow-Salam-Weinberg models (1967), the turning points were the renormalization of Yang-Mills theories (1972) and the evidence of asymptotic freedom (1973). The Standard Model was born, and the paradigm of QFT would thereafter characterize the physics of fundamental interactions, notwithstanding the coming back of a bootstrap philosophy in the context of superstrings. .
Death and resurrection of field theory: 1960-1975
Paolo Rossi
2017-01-01
Abstract
Notwithstanding the success of QED, around 1960 Quantum Field Theory (QFT), not managing to deal with strong and weak interactions, fell into a very serious crisis. The bootstrap approach, based on the centrality of the S matrix and on the hope that the consistency conditions dictated by unitarity, analyticity, crossing, symmetries and Regge behaviour could determine the scattering amplitudes, was then proposed as an alternative paradigm. Despite initial success and further theoretical developments the bootstrap program was losing momentum, when in 1968 a significant reprise was stimulated by Veneziano’s dual resonance model and by the birth of string theory. Internal consistency problems led however to a dismissal of the approach around 1973, when it had already become clear that it was possible to formulate field theories of the weak and strong interactions. After the appearance of the quark model (1964) and of the Glashow-Salam-Weinberg models (1967), the turning points were the renormalization of Yang-Mills theories (1972) and the evidence of asymptotic freedom (1973). The Standard Model was born, and the paradigm of QFT would thereafter characterize the physics of fundamental interactions, notwithstanding the coming back of a bootstrap philosophy in the context of superstrings. .I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.