Wednesday, September 4, 2019

cosmology - How does one ensure that effective action includes all possible quantum corrections to the clasical action?


Consider a classical scalar field theory for a real scalar field ϕ given by L=12(μϕ)2V(ϕ)

where V(ϕ) is the classical potential. In quantum field theory, one defines an effective potential Veff(ϕ). And unlike classical field theory where spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is analyzed by minimizing V(ϕ), SSB in quantum field theory is analyzed by minimizing Veff(ϕ).


For this purpose, one defines a new functional Γ[ϕ], called the effective action. Intuitively, the name suggests that Γ[ϕ] must be a modification to the classical action S[ϕ] when one takes quantum corrections into account. Indeed when one calculates Γ[ϕ], one obtains Γ[ϕ]=S[ϕ]+quantum corrections of O().

But that may or may not contain all possible corrections.



However, Γ[ϕ] is not defined as Γ[ϕ]=S[ϕ]+all possible quantum loop corrections

but as Γ[ϕ]=W[J]d4xj(x)ϕ(x).


From this definition, how can one be so sure, in general, that evaluation of Γ[ϕ] gives all possible quantum corrections to S[ϕ] in powers of and nothing is left out? In other words, is there a way to show/see that (1) holds for a generic potential V(ϕ)?




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