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I was told that one of the most efficient tools (e.g. in terms of computations relevant to physics, but also in terms of guessing heuristically mathematical facts) that physicists use is the so called "Feynmann path integral", which, as far as I understand, means "integrating" a functional (action) on some infinite-dimentional space of configurations (fields) of a system.

Unfortunately it seems that, except for some few instances like Gaussian-type integrals, the quotation marks cannot be eliminated in the term "integration", cause a mathematically sound integration theory on infinite-dimentional spaces -I was told- has not been invented yet.

I would like to know the state of the art of the attempts to make this "path integral" into a well-defined mathematical entity.

Difficulties of analytical nature are certainly present, but I read somewhere that perhaps the true nature of path integral would be hidden in some combinatorial or higher-categorical structures which are not yet understood...

Edit: I should be more precise about the kind of answer that I expected to this question. I was not asking about reference for books/articles in which the path integral is treated at length and in detail. I'd have just liked to have some "fresh", (relatively) concise and not too-specialistic account of the situation; something like: "Essentially the problems are due to this and this, and there have been approaches X, Y, Z that focus on A, B, C; some progress have been made in ... but problems remain in ...".

I was told that one of the most efficient tools (e.g. in terms of computations relevant to physics, but also in terms of guessing heuristically mathematical facts) that physicists use is the so called "Feynman path integral", which, as far as I understand, means "integrating" a functional (action) on some infinite-dimentional space of configurations (fields) of a system.

Unfortunately, it seems that, except for some few instances like Gaussian-type integrals, the quotation marks cannot be eliminated in the term "integration", cause a mathematically sound integration theory on infinite-dimensional spaces — I was told — has not been invented yet.

I would like to know the state of the art of the attempts to make this "path integral" into a well-defined mathematical entity.

Difficulties of analytical nature are certainly present, but I read somewhere that perhaps the true nature of path integral would be hidden in some combinatorial or higher-categorical structures which are not yet understood...

Edit: I should be more precise about the kind of answer that I expected to this question. I was not asking about reference for books/articles in which the path integral is treated at length and in detail. I'd have just liked to have some "fresh", (relatively) concise and not too-specialistic account of the situation; something like: "Essentially the problems are due to this and this, and there have been approaches X, Y, Z that focus on A, B, C; some progress have been made in ... but problems remain in ...".

I was told that one of the most efficient tools (e.g. in terms of computations relevant to physics, but also in terms of guessing heuristically mathematical facts) that physicists use is the so called "Feynmann path integral", which, as far as I understand, means "integrating" a functional (action) on some infinite-dimentional space of configurations (fields) of a system.

Unfortunately it seems that, except for some few instances like Gaussian-type integrals, the quotation marks cannot be eliminated in the term "integration", cause a mathematically sound integration theory on infinite-dimentional spaces -I was told- has not been invented yet.

I would like to know the state of the art of the attempts to make this "path integral" into a well-defined mathematical entity.

Difficulties of analytical nature are certainly present, but I read somewhere that perhaps the true nature of path integral would be hidden in some combinatorial or higher-categorical structures which are not yet understood...

I was told that one of the most efficient tools (e.g. in terms of computations relevant to physics, but also in terms of guessing heuristically mathematical facts) that physicists use is the so called "Feynmann path integral", which, as far as I understand, means "integrating" a functional (action) on some infinite-dimentional space of configurations (fields) of a system.

Unfortunately it seems that, except for some few instances like Gaussian-type integrals, the quotation marks cannot be eliminated in the term "integration", cause a mathematically sound integration theory on infinite-dimentional spaces -I was told- has not been invented yet.

I would like to know the state of the art of the attempts to make this "path integral" into a well-defined mathematical entity.

Difficulties of analytical nature are certainly present, but I read somewhere that perhaps the true nature of path integral would be hidden in some combinatorial or higher-categorical structures which are not yet understood...

Edit: I should be more precise about the kind of answer that I expected to this question. I was not asking about reference for books/articles in which the path integral is treated at length and in detail. I'd have just liked to have some "fresh", (relatively) concise and not too-specialistic account of the situation; something like: "Essentially the problems are due to this and this, and there have been approaches X, Y, Z that focus on A, B, C; some progress have been made in ... but problems remain in ...".