The path integral on the lattice

Abstract

The basic tool for quantizing fields on the lattice is the Euclidean path integral. Our first chapter is dedicated to the introduction of the path integral formalism and to its interpretation. In order to develop the idea without getting lost in technicalities we introduce the path integral for the simplest case, a scalar field theory. We derive and discuss the two key equations of lattice field theory. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.