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Renormalization



 
 
In quantum field theory
Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory or QFT provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanics models of systems classically described by field or of Many-body problem....
, the statistical mechanics
Statistical mechanics

Statistical mechanics is the application of probability theory, which includes Mathematics tools for dealing with large populations, to the field of mechanics, which is concerned with the motion of particles or objects when subjected to a force....
 of fields, and the theory of self-similar
Self-similarity

In mathematics, a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similarity to a part of itself . Many objects in the real world, such as coastlines, are statistically self-similar: parts of them show the same statistical properties at many scales....
 geometric structures, renormalization refers to a collection of techniques used to take a continuum limit.

When describing space and time as a continuum, certain statistical and quantum mechanical constructions are ill defined. In order to define them, the continuum limit has to be taken carefully.

Renormalization determines the relationship between parameters in the theory, when the parameters describing large distance scales differ from the parameters describing small distances.






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In quantum field theory
Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory or QFT provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanics models of systems classically described by field or of Many-body problem....
, the statistical mechanics
Statistical mechanics

Statistical mechanics is the application of probability theory, which includes Mathematics tools for dealing with large populations, to the field of mechanics, which is concerned with the motion of particles or objects when subjected to a force....
 of fields, and the theory of self-similar
Self-similarity

In mathematics, a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similarity to a part of itself . Many objects in the real world, such as coastlines, are statistically self-similar: parts of them show the same statistical properties at many scales....
 geometric structures, renormalization refers to a collection of techniques used to take a continuum limit.

When describing space and time as a continuum, certain statistical and quantum mechanical constructions are ill defined. In order to define them, the continuum limit has to be taken carefully.

Renormalization determines the relationship between parameters in the theory, when the parameters describing large distance scales differ from the parameters describing small distances. Renormalization was first developed in quantum electrodynamics
Quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....
 (QED) to make sense of infinite
Infinity

Infinity comes from the Latin infinitas or "unboundedness." It refers to several distinct concepts – usually linked to the idea of "without end" – which arise in philosophy, mathematics, and theology....
 integrals in perturbation theory
Perturbation theory

Perturbation theory comprises mathematical methods that are used to find an approximate solution to a problem which cannot be solved exactly, by starting from the exact solution of a related problem....
. Initially viewed as a suspect, provisional procedure by some of its originators, renormalization eventually was embraced as an important and self-consistent tool in several fields of physics
Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
 and mathematics
Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, change, and related topics of pattern and form. Mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, natural science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere....
.

Self-interactions in classical physics

Renormalized Vertex
The problem of infinities first arose in the classical electrodynamics of point particle
Elementary particle

In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a wiktionary:particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles....
s in the 19th and early 20th century.

The mass of a charged particle should include the mass-energy in its electrostatic field. Assume that the particle is a charged spherical shell of radius . The energy in the field is

and it is infinite when is zero, which is obviously absurd (because it implies that the point particle could never be moved). Incidentally, the value of that makes equal to the electron mass is called the classical electron radius
Classical electron radius

The classical electron radius, also known as the Hendrik Lorentz radius or the Thomson scattering length, is based on a classical special relativity model of the electron....
, which (restoring factors of c and ) turns out to be times smaller than the Compton wavelength
Compton wavelength

The Compton wavelength is a quantum mechanics property of a particle. It was introduced by Arthur Compton in his explanation of the scattering of photons by electrons ....
 of the electron:

The total effective mass of a spherical charged particle includes the actual bare mass of the spherical shell (in addition to the aforementioned mass associated with its electric field). If the shell's bare mass is allowed to be negative, it might be possible to take a consistent point limit. This was called renormalization, and Lorentz
Lorentz

Lorentz is a name derived from the Roman surname, Laurentius, which mean "from Laurentum".Lorentz may refer to:In literature:* Friedrich Lorentz, author of works on the Pomeranian language...
 and Abraham
Max Abraham

Max Abraham was a Germany physicist.Abraham was born in Danzig, Germany to a family of Jewish merchants. Attending the University of Berlin, he studied under Max Planck....
 attempted to develop a classical theory of the electron this way. This early work was the inspiration for later attempts at regularization
Regularization (physics)

In physics, especially quantum field theory, regularization is a method of dealing with infinite, divergent, and non-sensical expressions by introducing an auxiliary concept of a regulator ....
 and renormalization in quantum field theory.

When calculating the electromagnetic
Electromagnetism

Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field, a field which exerts a force on Elementary particles with the property of electric charge and which is reciprocally affected by the presence and motion of such particles....
 interactions of charged
Electric charge

Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interaction. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields....
 particles, it is tempting to ignore the back-reaction of a particle's own field on itself. But this back reaction is necessary to explain the friction on charged particles when they emit radiation. If the electron is assumed to be a point, the value of the back-reaction diverges, for the same reason that the mass diverges, because the field is inverse-square
Inverse-square law

In physics, an inverse-square law is any physical law stating that some physical quantity or strength is Inverse ly proportionality to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity....
.

The Abraham-Lorentz theory
Abraham-Lorentz force

In the physics of electromagnetism, the Abraham-Lorentz force is the recoil force on an acceleration charged particle caused by the particle emitting electromagnetic radiation....
 had a noncausal "pre-acceleration". Sometimes an electron would start moving before the force is applied. This is a sign that the point limit is inconsistent. An extended body will start moving when a force is applied within one radius of the center of mass.

The trouble was worse in classical field theory than in quantum field theory, because in quantum field theory a charged particle at short distances can fluctuate into an antiparticle. The antiparticle has opposite charge, and the fluctuations smear out the charge over a region comparable to the Compton wavelength. In quantum electrodynamics at small coupling the electromagnetic mass only diverges as the log of the radius of the particle.

Many physicists believe that when the fine structure constant is much greater than one, so that the classical electron radius is bigger than the quantum wavelength, the same problems that plague classical electrodynamics are still present in quantum electrodynamics.

Divergences in quantum electrodynamics


Loop Diagram


When developing quantum electrodynamics in the 1930s, Max Born
Max Born

Max Born was a Germany physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 30s....
, Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg was a German Theoretical physics who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory....
, Pascual Jordan
Pascual Jordan

Pascual Jordan was a theoretical and mathematical physicist who made significant contributions to quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. He contributed much to the mathematical form of matrix mechanics, and developed quantum field theory for fermions....
, and Paul Dirac
Paul Dirac

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Order of Merit , Royal Society was a United Kingdom theoretical physicist. Dirac made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics....
 discovered that in perturbative calculations many integrals were divergent.

One way of describing the divergences was discovered in the 1930s by Ernst Stueckelberg
Ernst Stueckelberg

Ernst Carl Gerlach Stueckelberg was a Swiss mathematician and physicist.In 1926 Stueckelberg got his Ph. D. at Munich under Arnold Sommerfeld....
, in the 1940s by Julian Schwinger
Julian Schwinger

Julian Seymour Schwinger was an United States theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work on the theory of quantum electrodynamics, in particular for developing a relativistically invariant perturbation theory, and for renormalizing QED to one loop order....
, Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman was an United States physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics ....
, and Shin'ichiro Tomonaga, and systematized by Freeman Dyson
Freeman Dyson

Freeman John Dyson Fellow of the Royal Society is a British-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, and nuclear engineering....
. The divergences appear in calculations involving Feynman diagram
Feynman diagram

In quantum field theory a Feynman diagram is an intuitive graphical representation of a contribution to the transition amplitude or correlation function of a quantum mechanical or statistical field theory....
s with closed loops of virtual particle
Virtual particle

In physics, a virtual particle is a particle that exists for a limited time and space, introducing uncertainty in their energy and momentum due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle....
s in them.

While virtual particles obey conservation of energy
Conservation of energy

The law of conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant. A consequence of this law is that energy cannot be created or destroyed....
 and momentum
Momentum

In classical mechanics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object . For more accurate measures of momentum, see the section Momentum#Modern definitions of momentum on this page....
, they can have any energy and momentum, even one that is not allowed by the relativistic energy-momentum relation for the observed mass of that particle. (That is, is not necessarily the mass of the particle in that process (e.g. for a photon it could be nonzero).) Such a particle is called off-shell. When there is a loop, the momentum of the particles involved in the loop is not uniquely determined by the energies and momenta of incoming and outgoing particles. A variation in the energy of one particle in the loop can be balanced by an equal and opposite variation in the energy of another particle in the loop. So to find the amplitude for the loop process one must integrate
Integral

Integration is an important concept in mathematics, specifically in the field of calculus and, more broadly, mathematical analysis. Given a function ƒ of a Real number variable x and an interval [ab] of the real line, the integral...
 over all possible combinations of energy and momentum that could travel around the loop.

These integrals are often divergent, that is, they give infinite answers. The divergences which are significant are the "ultraviolet
Ultraviolet divergence

In physics, an ultraviolet divergence is a situation in which an integral, for example a Feynman diagram, diverges because of contributions of objects with very high energy , or, equivalently, because of physical phenomena at very short distances....
" (UV) ones. An ultraviolet divergence can be described as one which comes from
- the region in the integral where all particles in the loop have large energies and momentum.
- very short wavelength
Wavelength

In physics, wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a propagating wave of a given frequency. It is commonly designated by the Greek language letter lambda ....
s and high frequencies
Frequency

Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency....
 fluctuations of the fields, in the path integral
Path integral formulation

The path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is a description of quantum theory which generalizes the action of classical mechanics. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique trajectory for a system with a sum, or functional integral, over an infinity of possible trajectories to compute a probability amplitude....
 for the field.
- Very short proper-time between particle emission and absorption, if the loop is thought of as a sum over particle paths.


So these divergences are short-distance, short-time phenomena.

There are exactly three one-loop divergent loop diagrams in quantum electrodynamics.
  1. a photon creates a virtual electron-positron
    Positron

    The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1, a spin of 1/2, and the same mass as an electron....
     pair which then annihilate, this is a vacuum polarization diagram.
  2. an electron which quickly emits and reabsorbs a virtual photon, called a self-energy.
  3. An electron emits a photon, emits a second photon, and reabsorbs the first. This process is shown in figure 2, and it is called a vertex renormalization.


The three divergences correspond to the three parameters in the theory:
  1. the field normalization Z.
  2. the mass of the electron.
  3. the charge of the electron.


A second class of divergence, called an infrared divergence
Infrared divergence

In physics, an infrared divergence is a situation in which an integral, for example a Feynman diagram, diverges because of contributions of objects with very small energy approaching zero, or, equivalently, because of physical phenomena at very long distances....
, is due to massless particles, like the photon. Every process involving charged particles emits infinitely many coherent photons of infinite wavelength, and the amplitude for emitting any finite number of photons is zero. For photons, these divergences are well understood. For example, at the 1-loop order, the vertex function has both ultraviolet and infrared divergences. In contrast to the ultraviolet divergence, the infrared divergence does not require the renormalization of a parameter in the theory. The infrared divergence of the vertex diagram is removed by including a diagram similar to the vertex diagram with the following important difference: the photon connecting the two legs of the electron is cut and replaced by two on shell (i.e. real) photons whose wavelengths tend to infinity; this diagram is equivalent to the bremsstrahlung
Bremsstrahlung

Bremsstrahlung , is electromagnetic radiation produced by the deceleration of a charged particle, such as an electron, when deflected by another charged particle, such as an atomic nucleus....
 process. This additional diagram must be included because there is no physical way to distinguish a zero-energy photon flowing through a loop as in the vertex diagram and zero-energy photons emitted through bremsstrahlung
Bremsstrahlung

Bremsstrahlung , is electromagnetic radiation produced by the deceleration of a charged particle, such as an electron, when deflected by another charged particle, such as an atomic nucleus....
.

A loop divergence


The diagram in Figure 2 shows one of the several one-loop contributions to electron-electron scattering in QED. The electron on the left side of the diagram, represented by the solid line, starts out with four-momentum and ends up with four-momentum . It emits a virtual photon carrying to transfer energy and momentum to the other electron. But in this diagram, before that happens, it emits another virtual photon carrying four-momentum , and it reabsorbs this one after emitting the other virtual photon. Energy and momentum conservation do not determine the four-momentum uniquely, so all possibilities contribute equally and we must integrate.

This diagram's amplitude ends up with, among other things, a factor from the loop of

The various factors in this expression are gamma matrices
Gamma matrices

In mathematical physics, the gamma matrices, , also known as the Dirac matrices, form a matrix-valued representation of a set of orthogonal basis vectors for contravariant vectors in space time, from which can be constructed a Clifford algebra....
 as in the covariant formulation of the Dirac equation
Dirac equation

In physics, the Dirac equation is a theory of relativity quantum mechanics wave equation formulated by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928 and provides a description of elementary particle spin-? particles, such as electrons, consistent with both the principles of quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity....
; they have to do with the spin of the electron. The factors of are the electric coupling constant, while the provide a heuristic definition of the contour of integration around the poles in the space of momenta. The important part for our purposes is the dependency on of the three big factors in the integrand, which are from the propagator
Propagator

In quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, the propagator gives the probability amplitude for a particle to travel from one place to another in a given time, or to travel with a certain energy and momentum....
s of the two electron lines and the photon line in the loop.

This has a piece with two powers of on top that dominates at large values of (Pokorski 1987, p. 122):

This integral is divergent, and infinite unless we cut it off at finite energy and momentum in some way.

Similar loop divergences occur in other quantum field theories.

Renormalized and bare quantities


The solution was to realize that the quantities initially appearing in the theory's formulae (such as the formula for the Lagrangian
Lagrangian

The Lagrangian, , of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics known as Lagrangian mechanics....
), representing such things as the electron's electric charge
Electric charge

Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interaction. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields....
 and mass
Mass

In physical science, mass refers to the degree of acceleration a body acquires when subject to a force: bodies with greater mass are accelerated less by the same force....
, as well as the normalizations of the quantum fields themselves, did not actually correspond to the physical constants measured in the laboratory. As written, they were bare quantities that did not take into account the contribution of virtual-particle loop effects to the physical constants themselves. Among other things, these effects would include the quantum counterpart of the electromagnetic back-reaction that so vexed classical theorists of electromagnetism. In general, these effects would be just as divergent as the amplitudes under study in the first place; so finite measured quantities would in general imply divergent bare quantities.

In order to make contact with reality, then, the formulae would have to be rewritten in terms of measurable, renormalized quantities. The charge of the electron, say, would be defined in terms of a quantity measured at a specific kinematic
Kinematics

Kinematics is a branch of classical mechanics which describes the motion of objects without consideration of the causes leading to the motion....
 renormalization point or subtraction point (which will generally have a characteristic energy, called the renormalization scale or simply the energy scale). The parts of the Lagrangian left over, involving the remaining portions of the bare quantities, could then be reinterpreted as counterterms, involved in divergent diagrams exactly canceling out the troublesome divergences for other diagrams.

Renormalization in QED


Counterterm
For example, in the Lagrangian of QED
Quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....


the fields and coupling constant are really bare quantities, hence the subscript above. Conventionally the bare quantities are written so that the corresponding Lagrangian terms are multiples of the renormalized ones:

.

(Gauge invariance, via a Ward-Takahashi identity
Ward-Takahashi identity

In quantum field theory, a Ward-Takahashi identity is an identity between correlation functions that follows from the global or gauged Symmetry in physics of the theory, and which remains valid after renormalization....
, turns out to imply that we can renormalize the two terms of the covariant derivative
Covariant derivative

In mathematics, the covariant derivative is a way of specifying a derivative along tangent vectors of a manifold. Alternatively, the covariant derivative is a way of introducing and working with a connection on a manifold by means of a differential operator, to be contrasted with the approach given by a connection on the frame bundle &mdas...
 piece together (Pokorski 1987, p. 115), which is what happened to ; it is the same as .)

A term in this Lagrangian, for example, the electron-photon interaction pictured in Figure 1, can then be written

The physical constant , the electron's charge, can then be defined in terms of some specific experiment; we set the renormalization scale equal to the energy characteristic of this experiment, and the first term gives the interaction we see in the laboratory (up to small, finite corrections from loop diagrams, providing such exotica as the high-order corrections to the magnetic moment
Magnetic moment

In physics, astronomy, chemistry, and electrical engineering, the term magnetic moment of a system usually refers to its magnetic dipole moment, and is a measure of the strength of the system's net Magnetism....
). The rest is the counterterm. If we are lucky, the divergent parts of loop diagrams can all be decomposed into pieces with three or fewer legs, with an algebraic form that can be canceled out by the second term (or by the similar counterterms that come from and ). In QED, we are lucky: the theory is renormalizable (see below for more on this).

The diagram with the counterterm's interaction vertex placed as in Figure 3 cancels out the divergence from the loop in Figure 2.

The splitting of the "bare terms" into the original terms and counterterms came before the renormalization group
Renormalization group

In theoretical physics, renormalization group refers to a mathematical apparatus that allows one to investigate the changes of a physical system as one views it at different distance scales....
 insights due to Kenneth Wilson. According to the renormalization group
Renormalization group

In theoretical physics, renormalization group refers to a mathematical apparatus that allows one to investigate the changes of a physical system as one views it at different distance scales....
 insights, this splitting is unnatural and unphysical.

Running constants


To minimize the contribution of loop diagrams to a given calculation (and therefore make it easier to extract results), one chooses a renormalization point close to the energies and momenta actually exchanged in the interaction. However, the renormalization point is not itself a physical quantity: the physical predictions of the theory, calculated to all orders, should in principle be independent of the choice of renormalization point, as long as it is within the domain of application of the theory. Changes in renormalization scale will simply affect how much of a result comes from Feynman diagrams without loops, and how much comes from the leftover finite parts of loop diagrams. One can exploit this fact to calculate the effective variation of physical constants
Coupling constant

In physics, a coupling constant, usually denoted g, is a number that determines the strength of an interaction. Usually the Lagrangian or the Hamiltonian mechanics of a system can be separated into a kinetic part and an interaction part....
 with changes in scale. This variation is encoded by beta-function
Beta-function

In theoretical physics, specifically quantum field theory, a beta-function ? encodes the dependence of a Coupling constant, g, on the energy scale, of a given physical process....
s, and the general theory of this kind of scale-dependence is known as the renormalization group
Renormalization group

In theoretical physics, renormalization group refers to a mathematical apparatus that allows one to investigate the changes of a physical system as one views it at different distance scales....
.

Colloquially, particle physicists often speak of certain physical constants as varying with the energy of an interaction, though in fact it is the renormalization scale that is the independent quantity. This running
Coupling constant

In physics, a coupling constant, usually denoted g, is a number that determines the strength of an interaction. Usually the Lagrangian or the Hamiltonian mechanics of a system can be separated into a kinetic part and an interaction part....
 does, however, provide a convenient means of describing changes in the behavior of a field theory under changes in the energies involved in an interaction. For example, since the coupling constant in quantum chromodynamics
Quantum chromodynamics

Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons ....
 becomes small at large energy scales, the theory behaves more like a free theory as the energy exchanged in an interaction becomes large, a phenomenon known as asymptotic freedom
Asymptotic freedom

In physics, asymptotic freedom is the property of some gauge theory in which the interaction between the particles, such as quarks, becomes arbitrarily weak at ever shorter distances, i.e....
. Choosing an increasing energy scale and using the renormalization group makes this clear from simple Feynman diagrams; were this not done, the prediction would be the same, but would arise from complicated high-order cancellations.

From another point of view, the solution of the Dirac equation can be expressed in 3-dimension momentum space. the only part involving time can be expressed as:

When , there will be:

If we can calculate all orders of perturbative expansion series, these divergences will cancel each other. Take an example:

When , all terms in the right side of the equation (except the first term 1) will be infinite. But these divergences cancel each other. So the total result

The time-related part involving time in zeroth order is .

In 1st order it is .

In 2nd order it is .

That explains why the divergence begin to occur in the 2nd order of feynman diagrams.

Regularization


Since the quantity is ill-defined, in order to make this notion of canceling divergences precise, the divergences first have to be tamed mathematically using the theory of limits
Limit (mathematics)

In mathematics, the concept of a "limit" is used to describe the behavior of a Function as its argument or input either "gets close" to some point, or as the argument becomes arbitrarily large; or the behavior of a sequence's elements as their index increases indefinitely....
, in a process known as regularization
Regularization (physics)

In physics, especially quantum field theory, regularization is a method of dealing with infinite, divergent, and non-sensical expressions by introducing an auxiliary concept of a regulator ....
.

An essentially arbitrary modification to the loop integrands, or regulator, can make them drop off faster at high energies and momenta, in such a manner that the integrals converge. A regulator has a characteristic energy scale known as the cutoff
Cutoff

In theoretical physics, cutoff is the maximal or minimal value of energy, momentum, or length, so that the objects with even larger or smaller values than these physical quantity are ignored....
; taking this cutoff to infinity (or, equivalently, the corresponding length/time scale to zero) recovers the original integrals.

With the regulator in place, and a finite value for the cutoff, divergent terms in the integrals then turn into finite but cutoff-dependent terms. After canceling out these terms with the contributions from cutoff-dependent counterterms, the cutoff is taken to infinity and finite physical results recovered. If physics on scales we can measure is independent of what happens at the very shortest distance and time scales, then it should be possible to get cutoff-independent results for calculations.

Many different types of regulator are used in quantum field theory calculations, each with its advantages and disadvantages. One of the most popular in modern use is dimensional regularization
Dimensional regularization

In theoretical physics, dimensional regularization is a method for tentatively rendering divergent integrals in the evaluation of Feynman diagrams finite....
, invented by Gerardus 't Hooft
Gerardus 't Hooft

Gerardus 't Hooft is a professor in theoretical physics at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with Martinus J....
 and Martinus J. G. Veltman
Martinus J. G. Veltman

Martinus Justinus Godefriedus Veltman is a Netherlands theoretical physicist. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in physics with his former student Gerardus 't Hooft for their work on particle theory....
, which tames the integrals by carrying them into a space with a fictitious fractional number of dimensions. Another is Pauli-Villars regularization
Pauli-Villars regularization

In theoretical physics, Pauli-Villars regularization is a procedure that isolates divergent terms from finite parts in loop calculations in field theory in order to renormalization the theory....
, which adds fictitious particles to the theory with very large masses, such that loop integrands involving the massive particles cancel out the existing loops at large momenta.

Yet another regularization scheme is the Lattice regularization, introduced by Kenneth Wilson, which pretends that our space-time is constructed by hyper-cubical lattice with fixed grid size. This size is a natural cutoff for the maximal momentum that a particle could possess when propagating on the lattice. And after doing calculation on several lattices with different grid size, the physical result is extrapolated to grid size 0, or our natural universe. This presupposes the existence of a scaling limit
Scaling limit

In physics or mathematics, the scaling limit is a term applied to the behaviour of a lattice model in the limit of the lattice spacing going to zero....
.

A rigorous mathematical approach to renormalization theory is the so-called causal perturbation theory
Causal perturbation theory

Causal perturbation theory is a mathematically rigorous approach to renormalization theory, which makesit possible to put the theoretical setup of perturbative quantum field theory on a sound mathematical basis....
, where ultraviolet divergences are avoided from the start in calculations by performing well-defined mathematical operations only within the framework of distribution
Distribution (mathematics)

In mathematical analysis, distributions are objects which generalize function s. They extend the concept of derivative to all locally integrable functions and beyond, and are used to formulate generalized solutions of partial differential equations....
 theory. The disadvantage of the method is the fact that the approach is quite technical and requires a high level of mathematical knowledge.

Zeta function regularization

Julian Schwinger
Julian Schwinger

Julian Seymour Schwinger was an United States theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work on the theory of quantum electrodynamics, in particular for developing a relativistically invariant perturbation theory, and for renormalizing QED to one loop order....
 discovered a relationship between zeta function regularization
Zeta function regularization

In mathematics and theoretical physics, zeta-function regularization is a type of regularization or summability method that assigns finite values to superficially divergent sums....
 and renormalization, using the asymptotic relation:

as the regulator . Based on this, he considered using the values of to get finite results. Although he reached inconsistent results, an improved formula by Hartle
Hartle

Hartle may refer to:*James Hartle, American physicist*Roy Hartle, retired soccer player...
, J. Garcia,E. Elizalde includes

,

where the Bs are the Bernoulli number
Bernoulli number

In mathematics, the Bernoulli numbers are a sequence of rational numbers with deep connections to number theory. They are closely related to the values of the Riemann zeta function at negative integers....
s and

.

So every can be written as a linear combination of

Or simply using Abel-Plana formula we have for every divergent integral:

valid when m>0, Here the Zeta function is Hurwitz zeta function
Hurwitz zeta function

In mathematics, the Hurwitz zeta function, named after Adolf Hurwitz, is one of the many zeta functions. It is formally defined for complex number arguments s with Re>1 and q with Re>0 by...
 and Beta is a positive real number.

The "Geometric" analogy is given by, (if we use rectangle method
Rectangle method

In mathematics, specifically in integral calculus, the rectangle method computes an approximation to a definite integral, made by finding the area of a collection of rectangles whose heights are determined by the values of the function....
) to evaluate the integral so:

Using Hurwitz zeta regularization plus rectangle method with step h (not to be confused with Planck's constant)

Attitudes and interpretation


The early formulators of QED and other quantum field theories were, as a rule, dissatisfied with this state of affairs. It seemed illegitimate to do something tantamount to subtracting infinities from infinities to get finite answers.

Dirac
Paul Dirac

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Order of Merit , Royal Society was a United Kingdom theoretical physicist. Dirac made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics....
's criticism was the most persistent. As late as 1975, he was saying:

Most physicists are very satisfied with the situation. They say: 'Quantum electrodynamics is a good theory and we do not have to worry about it any more.' I must say that I am very dissatisfied with the situation, because this so-called 'good theory' does involve neglecting infinities which appear in its equations, neglecting them in an arbitrary way. This is just not sensible mathematics. Sensible mathematics involves neglecting a quantity when it is small - not neglecting it just because it is infinitely great and you do not want it!


Another important critic was Feynman
Richard Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman was an United States physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics ....
. Despite his crucial role in the development of quantum electrodynamics, he wrote the following in 1985:

The shell game that we play ... is technically called 'renormalization'. But no matter how clever the word, it is still what I would call a dippy process! Having to resort to such hocus-pocus has prevented us from proving that the theory of quantum electrodynamics is mathematically self-consistent. It's surprising that the theory still hasn't been proved self-consistent one way or the other by now; I suspect that renormalization is not mathematically legitimate.


While Dirac's criticism was based on the procedure of renormalization itself, Feynman's criticism was very different. Feynman was concerned that all field theories known in the 1960s had the property that the interactions becomes infinitely strong at short enough distance scales. This property, called a Landau pole
Landau pole

In physics, Landau pole is the energy scale where a coupling constant of a quantum field theory becomes infinity. Such a possibility was pointed out by the physicist Lev Davidovich Landau....
, made it plausible that quantum field theories were all inconsistent. In 1974, Gross
David Gross

David Jonathan Gross is an United States particle physics and string theory. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of asymptotic freedom....
, Politzer and Wilczek
Frank Wilczek

Frank Anthony Wilczek is an United States theoretical physics and Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
 showed that another quantum field theory, Quantum Chromodynamics
Quantum chromodynamics

Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons ....
, does not have a landau pole. Feynman, along with most others, accepted that QCD was a fully consistent theory.

The general unease was almost universal in texts up to the 1970s and 1980s. Beginning in the 1970s, however, inspired by work on the renormalization group
Renormalization group

In theoretical physics, renormalization group refers to a mathematical apparatus that allows one to investigate the changes of a physical system as one views it at different distance scales....
 and effective field theory
Effective field theory

In physics, an effective field theory is an approximate theory that includes appropriate degrees of freedom to describe physical phenomena occurring at a chosen length scale, while ignoring substructure and degrees of freedom at shorter distances ....
, and despite the fact that Dirac and various others -- all of whom belonged to the older generation -- never withdrew their criticisms, attitudes began to change, especially among younger theorists. Kenneth G. Wilson
Kenneth G. Wilson

Kenneth Geddes Wilson is an United States theoretical physicist.As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he was a William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition....
 and others demonstrated that the renormalization group is useful in statistical
Statistical mechanics

Statistical mechanics is the application of probability theory, which includes Mathematics tools for dealing with large populations, to the field of mechanics, which is concerned with the motion of particles or objects when subjected to a force....
 field theory applied to condensed matter physics
Condensed matter physics

Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter. In particular, it is concerned with the "condensed" phase that appear whenever the number of constituents in a system is extremely large and the interactions between the constituents are strong....
, where it provides important insights into the behavior of phase transition
Phase transition

In thermodynamics, a phase transition is the transformation of a thermodynamic system from one phase to another.At phase-transition point, physical properties may undergo abrupt change- for instance, volume of the two phases may be vastly different....
s. In condensed matter physics, a
real short-distance regulator exists: matter
Matter

In common usage, matter is anything that has both mass and volume . A more rigorous definition is used in science: matter is what atoms and molecules are made of....
 ceases to be continuous on the scale of atom
Atom

|-! bgcolor=gray | Properties|-||}The atom is a basic unit of matter consisting of a dense, central atomic nucleus surrounded by a electron cloud of electric charge electrons....
s. Short-distance divergences in condensed matter physics do not present a philosophical problem, since the field theory is only an effective, smoothed-out representation of the behavior of matter anyway; there are no infinities since the cutoff is actually always finite, and it makes perfect sense that the bare quantities are cutoff-dependent.

If QFT
QFT

QFT is a three-letter abbreviation with multiple meanings, as described below:* Quantum field theory, the theory of quantum mechanics for field-like systems...
 holds all the way down past the Planck length
Planck length

In physics, the Planck length, denoted , is unit of length, equal to about 1.6 × 10-33 centimeters. It is a base unit in the system of Planck units, the most widely used system of natural units....
 (where it might yield to string theory
String theory

String theory is a developing branch of theoretical physics that combines quantum mechanics and general relativity into a quantum gravity. The String s of string theory are one-dimensional oscillating lines, but they are no longer considered fundamental to the theory, which can be formulated in terms of points or surfaces too....
, causal set theory or something different), then there may be no real problem with short-distance divergences in particle physics
Particle physics

Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the elementary particle constituents of matter and radiation, and the interactions between them....
 either;
all field theories could simply be effective field theories. In a sense, this approach echoes the older attitude that the divergences in QFT speak of human ignorance about the workings of nature, but also acknowledges that this ignorance can be quantified and that the resulting effective theories remain useful.

In QFT, the value of a physical constant, in general, depends on the scale that one chooses as the renormalization point, and it becomes very interesting to examine the renormalization group running of physical constants under changes in the energy scale. The coupling constants in the Standard Model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
 of particle physics vary in different ways with increasing energy scale: the coupling of quantum chromodynamics
Quantum chromodynamics

Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons ....
 and the weak isospin coupling of the electroweak force tend to decrease, and the weak hypercharge coupling of the electroweak force tends to increase. At the colossal energy scale of 1015 GeV
GEV

GEV may stand for:*Generalized extreme value distribution*Electronvolt*Wing-In-Ground effect vehicle*G.E.V., a tabletop game by Steve Jackson games, based on Ogre_...
 (far beyond the reach of our civilization's particle accelerator
Particle accelerator

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel electric charge Elementary particles to high speeds and to contain them....
s), they all become approximately the same size (Grotz and Klapdor 1990, p. 254), a major motivation for speculations about grand unified theory. Instead of being only a worrisome problem, renormalization has become an important theoretical tool for studying the behavior of field theories in different regimes.

If a theory featuring renormalization (e.g. QED) can only be sensibly interpreted as an effective field theory, i.e. as an approximation reflecting human ignorance about the workings of nature, then the problem remains of discovering a more accurate theory that does not have these renormalization problems. As Lewis Ryder has put it, "In the Quantum Theory, these [classical] divergences do not disappear; on the contrary, they appear to get worse. And despite the comparative success of renormalisation theory the feeling remains that there ought to be a more satisfactory way of doing things."

Renormalizability


From this philosophical reassessment a new concept follows naturally: the notion of renormalizability. Not all theories lend themselves to renormalization in the manner described above, with a finite supply of counterterms and all quantities becoming cutoff-independent at the end of the calculation. If the Lagrangian contains combinations of field operators of excessively high dimension
Dimensional analysis

Dimensional analysis is a conceptual tool often applied in physics, chemistry, and engineering to understand physical situations involving certain physical quantities....
 in energy units, the counterterms required to cancel all divergences proliferate to infinite number, and, at first glance, the theory would seem to gain an infinite number of free parameters and therefore lose all predictive power, becoming scientifically worthless. Such theories are called
nonrenormalizable.

The Standard Model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
 of particle physics contains only renormalizable operators, but the interactions of general relativity
General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the Geometry Theoretical physics of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916....
 become nonrenormalizable operators if one attempts to construct a field theory of quantum gravity
Quantum gravity

Quantum gravity is the field of theoretical physics attempting to unify quantum mechanics, which describes three of the Fundamental interaction , with general relativity, the theory of the fourth fundamental force: Gravitation....
 in the most straightforward manner, suggesting that perturbation theory
Perturbation theory (quantum mechanics)

In quantum mechanics, perturbation theory is a set of approximation schemes directly related to mathematical perturbation theory for describing a complicated quantum system in terms of a simpler one....
 is useless in application to quantum gravity.

However, in an effective field theory
Effective field theory

In physics, an effective field theory is an approximate theory that includes appropriate degrees of freedom to describe physical phenomena occurring at a chosen length scale, while ignoring substructure and degrees of freedom at shorter distances ....
, "renormalizability" is, strictly speaking, a misnomer
Misnomer

A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derived their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject?becoming named popularly or widely referenced?long before their true natures were known....
. In a nonrenormalizable effective field theory, terms in the Lagrangian do multiply to infinity, but have coefficients suppressed by ever-more-extreme inverse powers of the energy cutoff. If the cutoff is a real, physical quantity—if, that is, the theory is only an effective description of physics up to some maximum energy or minimum distance scale—then these extra terms could represent real physical interactions. Assuming that the dimensionless constants in the theory do not get too large, one can group calculations by inverse powers of the cutoff, and extract approximate predictions to finite order in the cutoff that still have a finite number of free parameters. It can even be useful to renormalize these "nonrenormalizable" interactions.

Nonrenormalizable interactions in effective field theories rapidly become weaker as the energy scale becomes much smaller than the cutoff. The classic example is the Fermi theory
Fermi's interaction

In physics, Fermi's interaction is an old explanation of the weak force, proposed by Enrico Fermi. Four fermions directly interact with one another....
 of the weak nuclear force, a nonrenormalizable effective theory whose cutoff is comparable to the mass of the W particle. This fact may also provide a possible explanation for
why almost all of the particle interactions we see are describable by renormalizable theories. It may be that any others that may exist at the GUT or Planck scale simply become too weak to detect in the realm we can observe, with one exception: gravity, whose exceedingly weak interaction is magnified by the presence of the enormous masses of star
Star

A star is a massive, luminous ball of Plasma that is held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth....
s and planet
Planet

A planet , as 2006 definition of planet by the International Astronomical Union , is a celestial body orbiting a star or Stellar evolution#Stellar remnants that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared the neighbourhood of planetesimals....
s.

Renormalization schemes

In actual calculations, the counterterms introduced to cancel the divergences in Feynman diagram calculations beyond tree level must be
fixed using a set of renormalization conditions. The common renormalization schemes in use include:
  • Minimal subtraction (MS) scheme
    Minimal subtraction scheme

    In quantum field theory, the minimal subtraction scheme, or MS scheme is a particular renormalization scheme used to absorb the infinities that arise in perturbative calculations beyond leading order....
     and the related modified minimal subtraction (MS-bar) scheme
  • On-shell scheme

Application in Statistical Physics

As mentioned in the introduction, the methods of renormalization have been applied to Statistical Physics, namely to the problems of the critical behaviour near second-order phase transitions, in particular at fictitious spatial dimensions just below the number of 4, where the above-mentioned methods could even be sharpened (i.e., instead of "renormalizability" one gets "super-renormalizability"), which allowed extrapolation to the real spatial dimensionality for phase transitions, 3. Details can be found in the book of Zinn-Justin, mentioned below.

For the discovery of these unexpected applications, and working out the details, in 1982 the physics Nobel prize was given to Kenneth G. Wilson
Kenneth G. Wilson

Kenneth Geddes Wilson is an United States theoretical physicist.As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he was a William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition....
.

Further reading


General Introduction


  • Delamotte, Bertrand ; , American Journal of Physics 72 (2004) pp. 170-184. Beautiful elementary introduction to the ideas, no prior knowledge of field theory being necessary. Full text available at:
  • Baez, John ; , (2005). A qualitative introduction to the subject.
  • Blechman, Andrew E. ; , (2002). Summary of a lecture; has more information about specific regularization and divergence-subtraction schemes.
  • Cao, Tian Yu & Schweber, Silvian S. ; , Synthese, 97(1) (1993), 33-108.
  • Shirkov, Dmitry ; Fifty years of the renormalization group, C.E.R.N. Courrier 41(7) (2001). Full text available at :
  • E. Elizalde ; Zeta regularization techniques with Applications


Mainly: Quantum Field Theory


  • Ryder, Lewis H. ; Quantum Field Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1985), [ISBN 0-521-33859-X] Highly readable textbook, certainly the best introduction to relativistic Q.F.T. for particle physics.
  • Zee, Anthony ; Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, Princeton University Press (2003) [ISBN 0-691-01019-6]. Another excellent textbook on Q.F.T.
  • Weinberg, Steven ; The Quantum Theory of Fields (3 volumes) Cambridge University Press (1995). A monumental treatise on Q.F.T. written by a leading expert, .
  • Pokorski, Stefan ; Gauge Field Theories, Cambridge University Press (1987) [ISBN 0-521-47816-2].
  • 't Hooft, Gerard ; The Glorious Days of Physics - Renormalization of Gauge theories, lecture given at Erice (August/September 1998) by the . Full text available at: .
  • Rivasseau, Vincent ; An introduction to renormalization, Poincaré Seminar (Paris, Oct. 12, 2002), published in : Duplantier, Bertrand; Rivasseau, Vincent (Eds.) ; Poincaré Seminar 2002, Progress in Mathematical Physics 30, Birkhäuser (2003) [ISBN 3-7643-0579-7]. Full text available in .
  • Rivasseau, Vincent ; From perturbative to constructive renormalization, Princeton University Press (1991) [ISBN 0-691-08530-7]. Full text available in .
  • Iagolnitzer, Daniel & Magnen, J. ; Renormalization group analysis, Encyclopaedia of Mathematics, Kluwer Academic Publisher (1996) [ISBN ]. Full text available in PostScript and pdf .
  • Scharf, Günter; Finite quantum electrodynamics: The causal approach, Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York (1995) [ISBN 3-540-60142-2].


Mainly: Statistical Physics


  • Nigel Goldenfeld ; Lectures on Phase Transitions and the Renormalization Group, Frontiers in Physics 85, Westview Press (June, 1992) [ISBN 0-201-55409-7]. Covering the elementary aspects of the physics of phases transitions and the renormalization group, this popular book emphasizes understanding and clarity rather than technical manipulations.
  • Zinn-Justin, Jean ; Quantum Field Theory and Critical Phenomena, Oxford University Press (4th edition - 2002) [ISBN 0-19-850923-5]. A masterpiece on applications of renormalization methods to the calculation of critical exponents in statistical mechanics, following Wilson's ideas (Kenneth Wilson was ).
  • Zinn-Justin, Jean ; Phase Transitions & Renormalization Group: from Theory to Numbers, Poincaré Seminar (Paris, Oct. 12, 2002), published in : Duplantier, Bertrand; Rivasseau, Vincent (Eds.) ; Poincaré Seminar 2002, Progress in Mathematical Physics 30, Birkhäuser (2003) [ISBN 3-7643-0579-7]. Full text available in .
  • Domb, Cyril ; The Critical Point: A Historical Introduction to the Modern Theory of Critical Phenomena, CRC Press (March, 1996) [ISBN 0-7484-0435-X].
  • Brown, Laurie M. (Ed.) ; Renormalization: From Lorentz to Landau (and Beyond), Springer-Verlag (New York-1993) [ISBN 0-387-97933-6].
  • Cardy, John ; Scaling and Renormalization in Statistical Physics, Cambridge University Press (1996) [ISBN 0-521-49959-3].


Miscellaneous


  • Shirkov, Dmitry ; The Bogoliubov Renormalization Group, JINR Communication E2-96-15 (1996). Full text available at:
  • Zinn Justin, Jean ; Renormalization and renormalization group: From the discovery of UV divergences to the concept of effective field theories, in: de Witt-Morette C., Zuber J.-B. (eds), Proceedings of the NATO ASI on Quantum Field Theory: Perspective and Prospective, June 15-26 1998, Les Houches, France, Kluwer Academic Publishers, NATO ASI Series C 530, 375-388 (1999) [ISBN ]. Full text available in .
  • Connes, Alain ; Symétries Galoisiennes & Renormalisation, Poincaré Seminar (Paris, Oct. 12, 2002), published in : Duplantier, Bertrand; Rivasseau, Vincent (Eds.) ; Poincaré Seminar 2002, Progress in Mathematical Physics 30, Birkhäuser (2003) [ISBN 3-7643-0579-7]. French mathematician (Fields medallist 1982) describe the mathematical underlying structure (the Hopf algebra
    Hopf algebra

    In mathematics, a Hopf algebra, named after Heinz Hopf, is a structure that is simultaneously a Associative algebra, a coalgebra, and has an antiautomorphism, with these structures compatible....
    ) of renormalization, and its link to the Riemann-Hilbert problem. Full text (in french) available in .
  • Blog about calculation of QED in 3-dimension momentum space .


See also

  • Bogoliubov-Parasyuk R-operation
  • Bogoliubov-Parasyuk theorem
    Bogoliubov-Parasyuk theorem

    The Bogoliubov-Parasyuk theorem in quantum field theory states that renormalized Green's functions and matrix elements of the S-matrix are free of Ultraviolet divergence....
  • Zeta function regularization
    Zeta function regularization

    In mathematics and theoretical physics, zeta-function regularization is a type of regularization or summability method that assigns finite values to superficially divergent sums....