The Finite Temperature Effective Potential for Local Composite Operators

A well-known difficulty of perturbative approaches to quantum field theory at finite temperature is the necessity to address theoretical constraints that are not present in the vacuum theory. In this work, we use lattice simulations of scalar correlation functions in massive $\phi^{4}$ theory to analyse the extent to which these constraints affect the perturbative predictions. We find that the standard perturbative predictions deteriorate even in the absence of infrared diver...

We have applied the recently proposed renormalization group improvement procedure of the finite temperature effective potential, and have investigated extensively the phase structure of the massive scalar $\phi^4$ model, showing that the $\phi^4$ model has a rich 3-phase structure at $T \neq 0$, two of them are not seen in the ordinary perturbative analysis. Temperature dependent phase transition in this model is shown to be strongly the first order.

A new method is proposed for the calculation of the free energy of an N-component Phi^4 theory at finite temperature. The method combines a perturbative treatment of the hard modes with a non-perturbative treatment in the effectively three-dimensional sector of the soft modes. The separation between hard and soft modes is achieved by the effective field theory method of Braaten and Nieto. One- and two-loop gap equations for the screening mass are used to resum higher order ef...

In order to investigate the nature of the phase transition, we study the finite temperature effective potential for the $\lambda \Phi^4$ theory in the Hartree-Fock approximation, which sums up all the daisy and superdaisy diagrams.

We calculate the one-loop effective potential at finite temperature for a system of massless scalar fields with quartic interaction $\lambda\phi^4$ in the framework of the boundary effective theory (BET) formalism. The calculation relies on the solution of the classical equation of motion for the field, and Gaussian fluctuations around it. Our result is non-perturbative and differs from the standard one-loop effective potential for field values larger than $T/\sqrt{\lambda}$.

It has long been understood that the inclusion of temperature in the perturbative treatment of quantum field theories leads to complications that are not present at zero temperature. In these proceedings we report on the non-perturbative obstructions that arise, and how these lead to deviations in the predictions of lattice scalar correlation functions in massive $\phi^{4}$ theory. Using the known non-perturbative spectral constraints satisfied by finite-temperature correlati...

Massless scalar electrodynamics is studied at high temperature and zero chemical potential. I derive the free energy to order $\lambda^2$, $\lambda e^2$ and $e^4$ by effective field theory methods. The first step consists of the construction of an effective three-dimensional field theory that is valid on distance scales $R\gg 1/T$ and whose parameters can be written as power series in $\lambda$ and $e^2$. These coupling constants encode the contribution to physical quantities...

Recent developments of perturbation theory at finite temperature based on effective field theory methods are reviewed. These methods allow the contributions from the different scales to be separated and the perturbative series to be reorganized. The construction of the effective field theory is shown in detail for phi^4 theory and QCD. It is applied to the evaluation of the free energy of QCD at order g^5 and the calculation of the g^6 term is outlined. Implications for the a...

By the concurrent use of two different resummation methods, the composite operator formalism and the Dyson-Schwinger equation, we re-examinate the behavior at finite temperature of the O(N)-symmetric $\lambda\phi^{4}$ model in a generic D-dimensional Euclidean space. In the cases D=3 and D=4, an analysis of the thermal behavior of the renormalized squared mass and coupling constant are done for all temperatures. It results that the thermal renormalized squared mass is positiv...

We study a composite quantum quench of the energy gap and the interactions in the interacting \phi^4 model using a self-consistent approximation. Firstly we review the results for free theories where a quantum quench of the energy gap or mass leads for long times to stationary behaviour with thermal characteristics. An exception to this rule is the 2d case with zero mass after the quench. In the composite quench however we find that the effect of the interactions in our appro...