Construction of gauge invariant effective nucleonic theories: Functional approach

Starting from relativistic quantum field theories, describing interacting nucleons and pions coupled to the dynamical electromagnetic field, the pion degrees of freedom are eliminated by means of functional integration. Apart from taking into account some operators perturbatively in e, e.g. the vacuum polarization, this procedure is exact, giving effective theories for nucleons and photons. The subsequent nonrelativistic reduction yields the corresponding nonrelativistic quantum field.theory. The latter is unique, irrespective of the precise form of the original nucleon-pion interaction. Nucleonic potentials and electromagnetic interactions are mutually consitent. Local gauge invariance is satisfied at any stage of the formal development.