Variational formulation of relativistic four-body systems in quantum field theory: scalar quadronium

Abstract

We discuss a variational method for describing relativistic four-body systems within the Hamiltonian formalism of quantum field theory. The scalar Yukawa (or Wick–Cutkosky) model, in which scalar particles and antiparticles interact via a massive or massless scalar field, is used to illustrate the method. A Fock-space variational trial state is used to describe the stationary states of scalar quadronium (two particles and two antiparticles) interacting via one-quantum exchange and virtual annihilation pairwise interactions. Numerical results for the ground-state mass and approximate wave functions of quadronium are presented for various strengths of the coupling, for the massive and massless quantum exchange cases. PACS Nos.: 11.10Ef, 11.10St, 03.70+k, 03.65Pm