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Klein-Gordon Propagator for spatial separation $x - y = (0, r)$

Physics Asked on March 4, 2021

On pg. 27 of Peskin and Schroeder I would like to know how we get the first equality when deriving the Klein-Gordon propagator for $x^0 – y^0 = 0, vec{x} – vec{y} = vec{r}$:

$$
D(x-y) = int frac{d^3p}{(2pi)^3} frac{1}{2E_p} e^{i vec{p} cdot vec{r}} = frac{2pi}{(2pi)^3} int_{0}^{infty} dp frac{p^2}{2 E_p} frac{e^{ipr} – e^{-ipr}}{ipr}
$$

The subsequent contour integral (2.52) makes sense but I’m a little confused about the derivation to get there from (2.50).

Why we are integrating only the imaginary part of $e^{ipr}$ and why the factor $ipr$ in the denominator?

One Answer

The easiest way to proceed is to notice that the first integral can only depend on $r := |vec{r}|$. To convince yourself of this, you can rotate $vec{r}$ by any rotation $R in SO(3)$, and you notice that you can always "unwind" this rotation by a redefinition of the momentum variable being integrated (if you take $vec{r}to Rvec{r}$ then change variables to $R^{T} vec{p} := vec{p}'$, where the Jacobian is just $1$). Since this works for any $R$ you know this is only a function of $r$.

Because of this fact, you can make your life easier by picking $vec{r} = ( 0, 0, r )$ (notice that $|( 0, 0, r )| = r$ is still true). If you plug this into the first integral you get $$ int frac{d^3 vec{p}}{(2pi)^3 } frac{1}{2 E_p} e^{- i vec{p} cdot vec{r}} = int frac{d^3 vec{p}}{(2pi)^3 } frac{1}{2 E_p} e^{- i p_3 r} $$ in spherical coordinates this becomes $$ cdots = int frac{dp ; dtheta ; dphi}{(2pi)^3 } frac{p^2 sintheta}{2 E_p} e^{- i r p costheta } . $$ I leave it up to you to simplify this to your expression ($phi$ integrates easily, and use the coordinate change $mu = costheta$).

Correct answer by QuantumEyedea on March 4, 2021

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