Dynamic coarse-graining approach to quantum field theory

2010/08/31 by Hans Christian Öttinger · 2 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Beta function (physics) #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Covariance #Dissipative system #Granularity #Mathematics #Perturbation theory (quantum mechanics) #Physics #Propagator #Quantum #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum field theory #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #Regularization (linguistics) #Renormalization #Thermal quantum field theory #hep-th #math-ph #math.MP #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.84.065007

published as Phys. Rev. D 84, 065007 (2011) · Expansion of the previous letter version to a fully detailed paper; 22 pages, 3 figures

arxiv created 2011/07/11 · openalex publication_date 2011/09/06 · arxiv updated 2018/03/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We build quantum field theory on the thermodynamic master equation for dissipative quantum systems. The vacuum is represented by a thermodynamic equilibrium state in the low-temperature limit. All regularization is consistently provided by a friction mechanism; with decreasing friction parameter, only degrees of freedom on shorter and shorter length scales are damped out of a quantum field theory. No divergent integrals need to be manipulated. Renormalization occurs as a tool to refine perturbation expansions, not to remove divergences. Relativistic covariance is recovered in the final results. We illustrate the proposed thermodynamic approach to quantum fields for the \ensuremathφ⁴ theory by calculating the propagator and the \ensuremathβ function, and we offer some suggestions on its application to gauge theories.

Citations

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• Kinetic theory and stochastic simulation of field quanta
• BRST quantization of Yang-Mills theory: A purely Hamiltonian approach on Fock space