Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

205 submissions , 163 unreviewed
5,082 questions , 2,232 unanswered
5,352 answers , 22,785 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
820 active unimported users
More ...

  Defining quantum effective action (Legendre transformation), existence of inverse (field - source)?

+ 3 like - 0 dislike
19113 views

Given a Quantum field theory, for a scalar field $\phi$ with generic Action $S[\phi]$, we have the generating functional $$Z[J] = e^{iW[J]} = \frac{\int \mathcal{D}\phi e^{i(S[\phi]+\int d^4x J(x)\phi(x))}} {\int \mathcal{D}\phi e^{iS[\phi]}}.$$

The one-point function in the presence of a source $J$ is.

$$\phi_{cl}(x) = \langle \Omega | \phi(x) | \Omega \rangle_J = {\delta\over\delta J}W[J] = \frac{\int \mathcal{D}\phi \ \phi(x)e^{i(S[\phi]+\int d^4x J(x)\phi(x))}} {\int \mathcal{D}\phi \ e^{i(S[\phi]+\int d^4x J(x)\phi(x))}}.$$

The effective Action is defined as the Legendre transform of $W$

$$\Gamma[\phi_{cl}]= W[J] -\int d^4y J(y)\phi_{cl}(y),$$ where $J$ is understood as a function of $\phi_{cl}$.

That means we have to invert the relation $$\phi_{cl}(x) = {\delta\over\delta J}W[J]$$ to $J = J(\phi_{cl})$.

How do we know that the inverse $J = J(\phi_{cl})$ exists? And does the inverse exist for every $\phi_{cl}$? Why?

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-13 14:08 (UCT), posted by SE-user Thomas
asked Apr 11, 2014 in Theoretical Physics by UnknownToSE (505 points) [ no revision ]

2 Answers

+ 2 like - 0 dislike

This is an interesting question, and although I don't know a rigorous answer, we can discuss some typical cases.

Usually, the inverse exists, but the cases where this inverse does not exist are not necessarily pathological (sound models can have the problem that the inverse does not exist).

For standard field theories (say, $\phi^4$, O(N) models, classical spins models, ...), generically the inverse exists, and this can be shown order by order in a loop expansion (I don't know if this has been proven at all order, but in standard textbooks, this is shown to order 1 or 2). However, the inverse will not exist necessarily for all $\phi_{cl}$, especially in broken symmetry phases. Indeed, an ordered phase is characterized by $$\bar\phi_{cl}=\lim_{J\to 0 } \phi_{cl}[J]=\lim_{J\to 0 }W'[J]\neq 0 ,$$ where $\bar \phi_{cl}$ is the equilibrium value of the order parameter. Therefore, you cannot inverse the relationship $\phi_{cl}[J]$ for $\phi_{cl}\in [0,\bar \phi_{cl}]$ ($\phi_{cl}[J]$ generically increases when $J$ increases).

Furthermore, there are cases where the inverse is simply not defined, because $\phi_{cl}[J]={\rm const}$ for all $J$. This is usually the case when the field has no independent dynamics without a source. For instance, if you take a single quantum spin at zero temperature, the only dynamics is given by external magnetic field (here in the $z$ direction) $$\hat H= -h.\sigma_z.$$ With $h>0$, the ground state is always $|+\rangle$, and the "classical field" $\phi_{cl}(h)=\langle \sigma_z\rangle=1/2$ for all $h$, and the Gibbs free energy (the Legendre transform of the free energy with respect to $h$, which is essentially the effective action) does not exist.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-13 14:08 (UCT), posted by SE-user Adam
answered Apr 11, 2014 by Adam (125 points) [ no revision ]
+ 1 like - 0 dislike

The inverse (and the Legendre transform) does not exist in general, not even for QFTs in a space-time of finitely many points  (where everything is simple multivariater analysis; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legendre_transform ).

One usually assumes silently that the second functional derivative is uniformly positive definite; this guarantees existence (and explains why some theories have broken symmetries).

answered Apr 13, 2014 by Arnold Neumaier (15,787 points) [ no revision ]

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$ysicsOv$\varnothing$rflow
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...