Covariant theory of the quantized electromagnetic field with only physical photons

Abstract

A manifestly covariant procedure for quantization of the electro-magnetic potentials A^mu is presented, wherein only two types of photons with space-like polarization vectors find a place. The non-appearance of unphysical photons corresponding to the longitudinal and scalar photons of other formulations is due to our insistence from the beginning that the Lorentz condition be satisfied (as an operator equation) by the A^mu, and it makes the introduction of any indefinite metric unnecessary. The authors theory therefore leads to the same results in quantum electrodynamics as earlier formulations, but in a manifestly Lorentz covariant and gauge invariant fashion and without recourse to concepts like the indefinite metric or any other ad hoc prescriptions.