On the Absence of the Zeno Effect in Relativistic Quantum Field Theory

We study the time evolution of decaying particles in renormalizable models of Relativistic Quantum Field Theory. Significant differences between the latter and Non Relativistic QuantumMechanics are found —in particular, the Zeno effect seems to be absent in such RQFT models. Conventional renormalization yields finite time behaviour in some cases but fails to produce finite survival probabilities in others. The analysis of the finite time evolution in relativistic quantum field theory (RQFT) and, in particular, the behaviour at short times of the survival probability of unstable particles in RQFT is a relevant matter as far as the foundations of quantum mechanics are concerned and has some peculiarities which make it to be worth studying. But before going to RQFT, we will briefly recapitulate the main features of the survival amplitude (SA) at short times in non relativistic quantum mechanics (QM henceforth); see, for instance, [1] for a comprehensive review. E-mail:[email protected] E-mail: [email protected]