Massive to Massless by Applying a Nonlocal Field Redefinition

Abstract

The invariance of physical observables like particle's mass under a local field redefinition is a well-known and important property of quantum field theory. In this paper, on the other hand, we investigate nonlocal field redefinitions eliminating a physical observable from a theory. Indeed, by giving explicit examples, we present invertible nonlocal field redefinitions reducing a massive theory to the massless one, and vice versa. The studied examples are: classical harmonic oscillator, the scalar field theory, and the Dirac field theory.

Comments: 11 pages, no figure. v2: references and clarifications added, v3: matches published version in PRD