Abstract. We show that a general variant of the Wick theorems can be used to reduce the time ordered products in the Gell-Mann & Low formula for a certain class on non local quantum field theories, including the case where the interaction lagrangian is defined in terms of twisted products. The only necessary modification is the replacement of the Stueckelberg-Feynman propagator by the general propagator (the ``contractor'' of Denk and Schweda) (y-y';τ-τ')=(1/i)(Δ₊(y-y') θ(τ-τ')+Δ₊(y'-y)θ(τ'-τ)) where the violations of locality and causality are represented by the dependence of τ,τ' on other points, besides those involved in the contraction. This leads naturally to a diagrammatic expansion of the Gell-Mann & Low formula, in terms of the same diagrams as in the local case, the only necessary modification concerning the Feynman rules. The ordinary local theory is easily recovered as a special case, and there is a one-to-one correspondence between the local and non local contributions corresponding to the same diagrams, which is preserved while performing the large scale limit of the theory.

Key words: Renormalization Regularization and Renormalons; Field Theories in Higher Dimensions; Non-Commutative Geometry

Received 16 April 2004, accepted for publication 17 August 2004
Published 20 September 2004