Can we view the normal, nonrelativistic quantum mechanics as a classical fields?
Yes, you can view the wave function $\psi(x,t)$ as an ordinary complex-valued field in the spirit of, say, classical electrodynamics. This field describes the quantum mechanics of a single electron, but it is classical in the sense that it's an ordinary function $\psi(x,t) : \mathbb R^3\times\mathbb R \to \mathbb C$.
As usual, you can have a lot of fun with the Lagrangian. For instance, you can note that there it has a (global) $U(1)$ symmetry $\psi \mapsto e^{i}\psi$ and apply the Noether theorem. You will find a continuity equation for the quantity $\psi^*\psi$, which we commonly interpret as the probability density.
Of course, the Schrdinger equation is limited to non-relativistic physics, so people started to look for a relativistic equivalent. Dirac's eponymous equation was intended to be precisely that: an equation for a classical field that describes a quantum mechanical electron in a Lorentz-covariant way. Of course, there should be an equivalent of the probability density $\psi^*\psi$, which is always positive, but no matter how you spin it, this just didn't work out, even for the Dirac equation.
The solution to this problem is that electrons don't live in isolation, they are identical particles and linked together via the Pauli exclusion principle. Dirac could only make sense of his equation by considering a variable number of electrons. This is where the classical field $\psi$ has to be promoted to a quantum field $\Psi$, a process known as second quantization. ("First quantization" refers to the fact that the classical field $\psi$ already describes a quantum mechanical particle.)
It turns out that second quantization is also necessary to explain certain corrections to the ordinary Schrdinger equation. In this light, the classical field $\psi$ is really an approximation as it does neglect the influence of a variable number of particles.
The process of considering a variable number of particles is actually quite neat. If you go from one to two particles, you would have to consider a classical field $\psi(x_1,x_2)$ that depends on two variables, the particle positions. Going to $N$ particles, you would have a field $\psi(x_1,\dots,x_N)$ depending on that many variables. You can get all particles at once by considering an operator valued field $\Psi(x)$ instead, which creates a particle at position $x$. It turns out that you can just replace $\psi$ by $\Psi$ in the Lagrangian to get the right equations of motion for all particles at once.
Alas, I have to stop here, further details on second quantization and quantum field theory are beyond the scope of this answer.
Concerning literature, I found Sakurai's Advanced Quantum Mechanics to be a very clear if somewhat long-winded introduction to quantum field theory that starts where the Schrdinger equation left off.
This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-07-22 05:15 (UCT), posted by SE-user Greg Graviton