English Dictionary

In Chaps. 3, 4, and 5, we saw that for each spin type, the Schrödinger picture wave equation for a state and the Heisenberg picture wave equation for the associated quantum field had the same form. In the former case, the wave equation solution was a state, i.e., a particle wave function. In the latter, the wave equation solution was a quantum field, i.e., an operator that created and destroyed states. For free scalars, this equation was the Klein-Gordon equation; for spinors, it was the (no interactions) Dirac equation; and for massless vectors (photons), it was Maxwell’s equation (sourceless, in terms of A𝜇).