Abstract

             The simplicity and easiness of the lowest-order constrained variational (LOCV) method among the other many-body techniques, persuaded us to use this method to study a well known and relatively cumbersome problem, compact QED in 2 + 1 dimensions. Various quantities such as the ground state energy, the mean value of the plaquette variable and the photon mass gap are computed. Finally, we compare our results with those which have been carried out using other many-body theories.