On the need for soft dressing

Daniel Carney, Laurent Chaurette, Dominik Neuenfeld, Gordon Semenoff
2018 Journal of High Energy Physics  
In order to deal with IR divergences arising in QED or perturbative quantum gravity scattering processes, one can either calculate inclusive quantities or use dressed asymptotic states. We consider incoming superpositions of momentum eigenstates and show that in calculations of cross-sections these two approaches yield different answers: in the inclusive formalism no interference occurs for incoming finite superpositions and wavepackets do not scatter at all, while the dressed formalism yields
more » ... he expected interference terms. This suggests that rather than Fock space states, one should use Faddeev-Kulish-type dressed states to correctly describe physical processes involving incoming superpositions. We interpret this in terms of selection rules due to large U(1) gauge symmetries and BMS supertranslations.
doi:10.1007/jhep09(2018)121 fatcat:siewgqrvhzfavdayw4spaendwm