Fully quantum treatment of the Landau-Pomeranchik-Migdal effect in QED and QCD

A rigorous quantum treatment of the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal effect in QED and QCD is given for the first time. The rate of photon (gluon) radiation by an electron (quark) in a medium is expressed in terms of the Green's function of a two-dimensional Schrodinger equation with an imaginary potential. In QED this potential is proportional to the dipole cross section for scattering of an e(+)e(-) pair off an atom, while in QCD it is proportional to the cross section of interaction of the color singlet quark-antiquark-gluon system with a color center. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.