A process algebra approach to quantum electrodynamics: Physics from the top up
Abstract
The process algebra was developed to study information flow and emergence in complex systems. From this perspective, fundamental phenomena are viewed as emerging from primitive informational elements generated by processes. The process algebra has been shown to successfully reproduce scalar non-relativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM), providing a realist model of quantum mechanics which appears to be free of the usual paradoxes and dualities. NRQM appears as an effective theory which emerges under specific asymptotic limits. Space-time, scalar particle wave functions and the Born rule are all emergent in this framework. In this chapter, the process algebra model is reviewed, extended to the relativistic setting and then applied to the problem of electrodynamics. A semiclassical version is presented in which a Minkowski-like space-time emerges as well as a vector potential that is discrete and photon-like at small scales and near-continuous and wave-like at large scales. QED is viewed as an effective theory at small scales while Maxwell theory becomes an effective theory at large scales. The process algebra version of quantum electrodynamics is intuitive and realist, free from divergences and eliminates the distinction between particle, field and wave. The need for second quantization is eliminated and the particle and field theories rest on a common foundation, clarifying and simplifying the relationship between the two.