How are one-point functions evaluated in causal perturbation theory?
I'm not sure where my mistake is in following the standard procedure.
Take the first-order coupling T1=λϕ3. Within the framework of causal perturbation theory, the corresponding tadpole diagram would be D+m(x1−x2):ϕ: where D+m is the positive frequency part of the massive Jordan-Pauli distribution. The singular order is simply that of the given distribution ω=−2, so one can proceed with the splitting procedure trivially:
t(x)=R1−R′1=D+(ret)m−D+m=D+(adv)m.
For two-point functions, the splitting procedure reproduces the usual Feynman rules if ω<0, and cases where ω≥0 are split differently, which avoids UV divergences.
The issue is that the above both does not give a Feynman propagator while having ω<0, yet in the "standard" theory with Feynman rules the tadpole loop would be divergent, suggesting ω≥0. Is that discrepancy a feature of the causal theory or have I misconstrued the procedure? In the latter case, what is the procedure to evaluate such diagrams?
This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2020-03-18 13:31 (UTC), posted by SE-user Quantumness