QFT 2 - Homework 4 Solution

March 11, 2014

1.1

We start with the Lagrangian:

/ m
L = D
and introduce the redefinition:

(x) = emvx [h (x) + H (x)]

with v 2 = 1 and
1 1
h (x) = (1 + v/) emvx (x) , H (x) = (1 v/) emvx (x)
2 2
Note that with these definitions, we find (by using = 0 0 ):
1
h (x) = h (x) 0 (x) emvx 1 + v 0


=
2
1
= (x) emvx (1 + v/)
2
and similarly
1
H (x) = (x) emvx (1 v/)
2
to give
(x) = h (x) + H (x) emvx
 

We make the substitution into our Lagrangian and find:

L = h (x) + H (x) emvx / + g A / m emvx [h (x) + H (x)]

 

 

= h (x) + H (x) / + g A / m (1 v/) [h (x) + H (x)]
2
Now we notice that (1 + v/) (1 v/) = 1 v 2 = 0 and (1 v/) = 2 (1 v/), so

(1 v/) h (x) = 0

1
 h (x) (1 v/) = 0
(1 v/) H (x) = 2H (x)

We find that our Lagrangian reduces to

L = h (x) D / h (x) + H (x) D
/ h (x) + h (x) D
/ H (x)


+ H (x) D / 2m H (x)

Now we remove the pieces which are projected out by h (x) and H (x). We notice that
1 1
/ (1 v/)2 = (1 v/) (1 v/) D
/ 2v D (1 v/) = (1 v/) (v D) (1 v/)


(1 v/) D
2 2
/ D
Projecting out the covariant derivative portion perpendicular to v/ by the definition D / +v D/
v
and using the identity v/ (1 v/) = (1 v/) gives


(1 v/) D/ (1 v/) = (1 v/) D
/ + v D/v (1 v/)


/ v D (1 v/)
= (1 v/) D


/ (1 v/)
= (1 v/) D

These two definitions allow us to simplify our Lagrangian to:

L = h (x) (v D) h (x) + H (x) D / h (x) + h (x) D
/ H (x)
H (x) (v D + 2m) H (x)

Now that we have reduced our Lagrangian, we can apply an equation of motion for H (x):

/ h (x) (v D + 2m) H (x) = 0

D
1
We notice that H (x) is suppressed by a factor of m compared to h (x). Solving for H (x) and
subsitituting this equation of motion back into the Lagrangian, we immediately see cancelation
between the terms with H (x). The other terms can be approximated by:

H (x) / h (x)
D
2m
giving as our leading-order Lagrangian:
1

L h (x) (v D) h (x) / D
h (x) D / h (x)
2m

1.2

Now introducing
h (x) = V (x) h (x)
  Z 0 

V (x) = P exp g ds v A (x + sv)

2
and supposing that under a gauge transformation:
(x) e(x) (x)
we find:
h (x) e(x) h (x)
= e(x) V (x) h (x)

With this in mind, we now consider gauge tranformations on V (x). We know that under a gauge
transformation,
1
A (x) A (x) + (x)
g
So we have
  Z 0  
1
V (x) P exp g ds v A (x + sv) + (u)
g u
  Z 0 Z 0 

= P exp g ds v A (x + sv) + ds v (u)
u

where u = x + sv and x is treated as a constant under integration. This allows us to see that
u
= v
s
which permits change of variables to a line integral:
  Z 0    Z 

P exp ds v (u) = P exp
u C

where C is a straight line path tracing from x to infinity along the v direction. Since (x) has
no support at x = , we can apply the fundamental theorem of calculus to solve for the action of
V (x) under gauge transformations:
  Z 0 

V (x) P exp g ds v A (x + sv) + (x) = e(x) V (x)

We conclude that the transformation properties of h (x) are encoded in V (x):

h (x) = V (x) h (x) e(x) V (x) h (x)
which allows us to conclude that under gauge transformations:
h (x) h (x)

In terms of h (x), our Lagrangian takes the form:

L = h (x) V (x) / + g A


/ V (x) h (x)
 Z 0 
/ /
= h (x) + g A g ds v A (x + sv) h (x)
x

3
We see that
u

= =
x x u u
so we can again remove the integral by following the change of variables from above:
Z 0

g ds v A (x + sv) = g A/
x
and we are left with

L = h (x) / h (x)

2.1

We seek the functions for the couplings and . First, we must renormalize our Lagrangian:
1 2 2

2
L = ( 1 ) + ( 2 ) 4 + 42 21 22
2 4! 1 4!
Z  2 2

2 2 2
4 + 42


+ ( 1 ) + ( 2 )
2 4! 1 4! 1 2
Since 1 and 2 use the same couplings, they have the same properties under renormalization,
allowing us to use only three renormalization parameters i .
Next, we must write our Feynman rules:
i i 1 1

i

= = =
p2 i i 2 2 3
i i 1 1

i

= Z = =
i i 2 2 3

We must correct for the normalization of our fields. This is calculated from corrections to the
propagator:

= + + +
However, we see that the one-loop corrections to the propagator are independent of the external
momentum. This means that the corrections are the same at all scales, and are canceled exactly,
giving no correction to the field normalization at first order.

4
We next seek to find the corrections to the coupling. This is generated by the diagrams:

= +

+ + +

+ + +

The first two diagrams on the right hand side are trivial. The second row of diagrams are all
related to each other via crossing symmetry, as are the third row. Furthermore, the diagrams from
the third row can be extracted from those of the second row by changing 3 . This means that
we only need to calculate one diagram:
p1 p3
d4 l
Z
2 1
p2 p4 = () 4 2
2 (2) (l + p1 + p2 ) l2
1
where the factor of 2 is a symmetry factor.
To make our result more general, we can define the integral:

d4 l
Z
1 1
I p2


= 4 2 l2
(2) (l + p)
Z 1 Z 0
2 l3 dl
= 2 lim dx 2
(4) 0 0 0 (l2 x (1 x) p2 )
Z 1 Z  
1 1
= 2 lim dx 2 du
(4) 0 u u
x (1 x) p2
 
1
= 2 lim 1 + log
(4)

We want to ensure that our integral gives no contribution at p2 = M 2 , as outlined in Peskin

equation 12.30. This allows us to conclude that (ignoring divergent pieces which will cancel)
!
2 2
      
2 2


3 2 1 2
= + 3I M = + 2 log M
2 9 2 9 (4)

Similarly, we can calculate the corrections to the coupling. The diagrams which contribute are:
1 1

2 2 = + +

+ + +

The last diagram in each line is new, but the others are similar to those calculated before. We can
calculate the last diagram:

5
   1
= () I (t)
3 2
which gives the same contribution as the last diagram in the first line.
Putting this all together, we conclude:
  !
2 1 2
= () + 2 log M
3 3 3 (4)

And our functions are given by equation 12.53 in Peskin

i = M i
M
which equates to:
! !
2 22
   
2 1 1
= 3 + 2 = 2 + 2
9 (4) 3 (4)

2.2

We use equation 12.73 in Peskin and substituting x = :

d
=
d log p/M
   
d d
=
d log p/M 2 d log p/M 2
    
1 2 2 1 2
= 2 2 x + x 3 1 + x
(4) 3 9
1 1
= x (x 3) (x 1)
3 (4)2

Since > 0, we find that x must either be in the range 0 < x < 1 or 1 < x < 3. If the former is
true, then is negative and the ratio of couplings grows as the distance scale grows. If the latter
is true, then is positive and decreases. The function switches sign at x = 1, so both cases
asymptotically approach the condition = .

2.3

We apply Peskin equation 12.131 to get:

! !
2 22
   
2 1 1
=  + 3 + 2 =  + 2 + 2
9 (4) 3 (4)

6
Now, we appeal to part 2 of this problem to analyze the coupling RG flow. We get the same result
as previously, but with a correction which cancels:
1 1
= x (x 3) (x 1)  2 +  2
3 (4)2
1 1
= x (x 3) (x 1)
3 (4)2

We show that the flow has nontrivial fixed points by requiring the ratio of couplings to be a certain
value and solving:

= 0:
2
3 2 (4)
= 0 =  + 2 = 0, = 
(4) 3

= 1:
  2
3 10 2 3 (4)
= 0 =  + 2 = 
(4) 9 10

= 3:
2
3 (4)
22 =


= 0 =  + 2 
(4) 6
     
(4)2 2
3(4)2 (4)2 (4)2
So there are nontrivial fixed points at the points given by (, ) = 3 , 0 , 3(4)
10 , 10  , 6 , 2 
These stable points can be seen in Figure 1.

7
Figure 1: Trajectory plot of the coupling evolution as the length scale increases for 4 dimensions.
1
Here we have taken  = 20 . is plotted on the horizontal axis and on the vertical axis. The
trajectories point toward the fixed points. The red lines are for guiding the eye and correspond to
lines of slope 0, 1, and 3. The fixed point along the line with slope 1 is an infrared-stable fixed
point, while the fixed point at the origin is an ultraviolet-stable fixed point. The other fixed points
are saddle points and are not stable.