The Application of the Tomonaga-Schwinger Theory to the Interaction of Nucleons with Neutral Scalar and Vector Mesons

The Tomonaga-Schwinger theory is applied to the interaction of neutral scalar and vector mesons with nucleons. The Hamiltonians are derived in the interaction representation and virtual effects are transformed away. The meson and nucleon self-energies are calculated. It is shown that they are invariant and, like the electron self-energy, can be transformed away by formal renormalizations of the meson and nucleon masses. All effects are independent of the direction of the general space-like surface in spite of the occurrence in the Hamiltonian of terms explicitly dependent on this direction.