Questions tagged [quantum-field-theory]
For questions about mathematical problems arising from quantum field theory, the branch of physics which describes subatomic particles and their interactions in terms of perturbations of the corresponding scalar, vector or tensor fields.
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Some version of non-commutative Wick formula
Let $V$ be a vertex algebra. The traditional non-commutative Wick formula is a tool to calculate term like $[a_\lambda:bc:]$. However, I need to calculate terms of the form $[:ab:_\lambda c]$. I found ...
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How do we give a rigorous mathematical meaning to expressions like $\delta^4(0)$ or $\lim\limits_{x \to y} \delta^4(x-y)$?
The question is as in the title. In QFT literature, $\delta^4(0)$ is said to stand for the volume of entire $\mathbb{R}^4$, where $\delta^4(x)$ is the $4-$dimensional delta function.
Or when defining ...
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Defining the multiplication of distributions in the context of QFT : Colombeau algebra vs Regularity structure?
This is a bit of a qualitative question.
A rigorous treatment of QFT comes down to making sense of multiplication of distributions, as far as I understand. This is in the aim of constructing and ...
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Segal's axioms for CFT
In Segal's papers about Conformal Field theory, https://www2.math.upenn.edu/~blockj/scfts/segal.pdf, in section $1$, he describes the evolution of a system (a string moving about in a manifold $M$) by ...
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Infinite-dimensional BRST reduction
Fix a base field $k$. First let me loosely describe the BRST reduction in the finite-dimensional setting. For a finite-dimensional Lie algebra $\mathfrak{n}$, we can form the Clifford algebra $\...
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Meaning of a quantum field given by an operator-valued distribution
I am trying to grasp the basics of rigorous quantum field theory. Let me summise how the setup of non-interacting quantum field theories look like to me.
Let $\mathcal{H}$ be a Hilbert space in which ...
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Approach to learning constructive QFT
First I would like to apologize if this post breaks any rule regarding career advice or opinion-based questions. Given that construct QFT (CQFT) is a rather small community, I found this is the only ...
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Evolution equation in renormalization group for infinitely-many variables
Let $\varepsilon > 0$, $L \gg 1$ and define the torus $\mathbb{T} = \varepsilon \mathbb{Z}^{d}/L\mathbb{Z}^{d}$. Let $K$ be a smooth, strictly decreasing function. To make things easier, consider ...
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How should I understand rigorously the definition of normal ordering of free fields
Let $\phi(x)$ be a free Hermitian scalar field in $4D$ Minkowski spacetime with the metric $(1,-1,-1,-1)$.
Then, though I wrote it as $\phi(x)$, it is in fact an operator-valued tempered distribution ...
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Making sense of $1+1$ massless bosonic free field as a "distribution" rather than tempered
The question has been motivated by the fact that the $1+1$ massless bosonic free field suffers the infrared problem as a "tempered distribution".
The reason is essentially that $\int_{\...
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Convergence in perturbative renormalization
Consider the following:
$$G(\phi,W) = -\log \int d\mu_{C}(\psi)e^{-W(\phi+\psi)} \tag{1}\label{1}$$
which is very common in QFT. Here $d\mu_{C}$ is a Gaussian measure with covariance $C$. I want to ...
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The ultraviolet limit as a limiting case of the renormalization group flow?
In his paper Constructive Renormalization Theory, V. Rivasseau describes the idea of Wilson's approach of solving path integrals step by step. In section 1.4, page 5, however, there is a statement ...
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Physics application of Wilson surface observables
There is some work which generalises the usual Wilson loop in QFT to higher dimensions and constructs non-abelian Wilson surface functionals in the context of non-abelian gerbes.
It seems to me that ...
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Dual Coxeter numbers, Langlands dual groups, black holes and twisted compactification of 6d (2,0) A D E theories on a circle
A 6-dimensional (2,0) superconformal quantum field theory comes in Lie algebra A, D, E types. These theories do not have classical Lagrangian and are purely quantum.These theories on a torus ...
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CFT as an axiomatic field theory
I'm trying to understand CFT from a purely axiomatic-field-theoretical perspective. That is, there is a vector space $V$ associated to the circle, and an element of $V^{\otimes n}$ associated to every ...
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Another formula for the Schwinger term — problems with a calculation
$\DeclareMathOperator\Tr{Tr}$I have a problem with understanding the proof of Proposition 6.8 in the book ,,Elements of Noncommutative Geometry''. One can find the formulation of this proposition here ...
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Practical consequences of the geometric cobordism hypothesis
As far as I understand, the cobordism hypothesis provides a construction of all (appropriately defined) fully-extended TQFTs. In particular, given a fully-dualizable object in a certain category, one ...
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Propagators and PDEs
I have already asked this at MSE but did not get an answer.
In quantum field theory one encounters the retarded, advanced and Feynman propagators as certain solutions to a wave equation. ...
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Coordinate free supersymmetric sigma model Lagrangian
I would like to know if there is a coordinate free version of the Lagrangian of the supersymmetric sigma model on a $2$-dimensional spacetime, with target space a Kähler manifold. The action for this ...
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CCR vs. CAR vs. Clifford algebras, infinite tensor products and type of the corresponding von Neumann algebra
$\newcommand\CAR{\mathit{CAR}}\newcommand\Cl{\mathbb C\mathit l}$This question will be rather long and it will be my attempt to finally clarify many issues concerning CCR, CAR and Clifford algebras ...
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Reference request for $\phi^{4}_{d}$ theory - where to begin?
When I started studying the basics of $\phi^{4}_{d}$, I looked for papers or lecture notes which would give me some general ideas about the topic and which would construct and/or prove the basic ...
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Fourier transform of the hyperboloid
Equip $\mathbb{R}^{d+1}$ with the Lorentzian form $\langle x, y\rangle=-x^0y^0+{\bf x}\cdot{\bf y}$ where $x=(x^0,{\bf x})$ and $\cdot$ is the usual Euclidean dot product. We define the hyperboloid $\...
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Cluster expansion, Mayer expansion and perturbative renormalization group
This is a second part of my previous question, which I decided to split into two parts not to mix up different topics at one giant question.
Again, according to V. Rivasseau (section 1.5 of ...
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What is a large field problem?
I was reading Constructive Renormalization Group by V. Rivasseau and I got some points which I would like to clarify.
On page 2, Rivasseau talks about the large field problem and, if I understood it ...
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Cutoff and regularization
Some variant of this question has probably been asked before on this site but my idea is to work with an explicit example.
Suppose we discretize the momentum space, so we work with:
$$\Lambda^{*} := \...
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The role of estimates in field theories
I have been taking a look at some papers in constructive quantum field theory and I got the impression that there is a systematic of estimating things like e.g the effective action or the free energy ...
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Pullbacks of LCS-valued distributions
Suppose $X$ is a locally convex space. Since the distributions $\mathcal{D}'\!(M)$ ($M$ a manifold) are a nuclear space, there is a canonical meaning to the topological tensor product $X\,\widehat{\...
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Arithmetic analogues in Liouville quantum gravity
I recently discovered about Minhyong Kim's work on what can be coined "Arithmetic Gauge Theory/Arithmetic Chern Simmons Theory". Since Liouville quantum gravity is fully understood, I was ...
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Is there a program to solve The Yang–Mills Existence and Mass Gap problem similar to the Hamilton's program to solve Poincaré Conjecture?
According to Wikipedia:
"Hamilton's program was started in his 1982 paper in which he introduced the Ricci flow on a manifold and showed how to use it to prove some special cases of the Poincaré ...
user483779
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Physical intuition behind Kontsevich's deformation quantization formula
Kontsevich gives a construction that produces deformation quantization of $C^\infty(M)$ for general Poisson manifolds $M$. The resulting formula (on $\mathbb{R}^n$) is
$$
f\star g = \sum_{n=0}^\infty \...
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Can Fock spaces be replaced by arbitrary Hilbert spaces under some hypothesis to justify path integrals?
I was reading this post from PSE and it reminded me an old question of mine, in which the use of creation and annihilation operators were discussed. Both questions got answers which agreed on the fact ...
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Borel vs genuine equivariant cohomology in quantum field theory
A lot of important work in quantum field theory involves Borel equivariant cohomology of certain geometric objects, usually with the goal of computing integrals over some complicated moduli stack. In ...
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Localization for generalized Borel cohomology
For both equivariant de Rham cohomology and equivariant K-theory (in the "naive" or Borel sense), we have localization formulae which allow us to compute this cohomology in terms of the ...
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Gauge invariance of a QFT path integral
If we consider the usual formal construction of a path integral over fields with gauge symmetries e.g as in Weinbergs "The Quantum Theory of Fields - Volume 2" the notion of gauge invariance ...
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Representations of minimal model primary fields in the Coulomb-gas Formalism
This question is in some sense a follow-up to [1]: is it known how to construct the primary field operators of the unitary minimal models $\mathcal{M}(m+1,m)$ in the Coulomb gas formalism? (This would ...
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Understanding the Osterwalder-Schrader conditions as formulated by Glimm and Jaffe
$\newcommand{\real}{\mathrm{real}}$I am having trouble with understanding the axiom (OS3) in this book by Glimm and Jaffe.
It defines
\begin{equation}
\mathcal{A} = \left \{ A(\phi) = \sum_{j = 1}^N ...
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Slice in momentum space?
This is probably a very basic question but I tried physics stack exchange already and I got no answers, so I'm asking the same question here.
I was reading this article and the author considers the ...
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Topological analogs of Galois representations and Selmer groups
There is an interesting analogy between primes in number fields and knots in 3-manifolds. This is can be explained by the analogy between Artin-Verdier duality theorem for number rings and the ...
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Class of spectral zeta functions whose analytic extension takes a particular form
In quantum field theory the one-loop effective action is expressed in terms of the functional determinant of the (elliptic and self-adjoint) operator of small disturbances. Since the real eigenvalues ...
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Why do quantum observables form an associative algebra in some contexts?
In elementary quantum mechanics, we learn that quantum observables are self-adjoint operators that act on the Hilbert space of states.
However, in more advanced context, we talk of local operators, ...
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Motivation for the axioms in Wick product
Here is a link for the definition of Wick product
https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Wick_product, which defines the Wick product recursively. My question is where do these two equations come from? I ...
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Do Chern-Simons terms qualitatively alter the behavior of the Yang-Mills gradient flow?
I'm reading about the Yang-Mills heat flow, and I'm curious how adding a Chern-Simons term alters its solutions. This is probably elementary or folklore, but I don't know well enough to say.
...
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Divisibility by 2 of invariants forms on reductive Lie algebras and anomaly cancellation for gauge theories
Let $G$ be a connected reductive group over $\mathbb C$ and let $\rho:G\to \operatorname{Sp}(2n,\mathbb C)$ be a homomorphism. You can think about $\rho$ as a linear symplectic representation of $G$ ...
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The exact domain on which the Euclidean Dirac operator is self-adjoint
I use the convention of the Weinberg QFT textbooks, that is, $(-,+,+,+)$.
According to Weinberg QFT vol 2 p. 369, he says the Euclidean Dirac operator
\begin{equation}
{D}:=[i\partial_i +t_\alpha A_{i ...
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What are the "hot" topics in mathematical QFT at the time?
I am currently finishing my Master's studies in mathematical physics. One topic which always interested me a lot were modern mathematical approaches to Quantum Field Theory (QFT) as well as the ...
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Is the timelike free boson CFT a valid CFT as per Segal's functorial CFT prescription?
Is the timelike free boson CFT a valid CFT as per Segal's functorial CFT prescription?
I am aware that the Euclidean free boson theory is a well-defined CFT, but I was wondering whether one might run ...
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From the conceptual idea of the RG to its actual implementation
Everytime I want to understand a little more about the ideas behind Renormalization Group techniques, I get troubled by a gap between the general picture one usually presents (e.g. in books or ...
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Wightman QFTs corresponding to minimal models
Is it known (rigorously) whether or not there exist (1+1)D Wightman QFTs which can (in some reasonable sense) be said to correspond to physicists' unitary minimal models $\mathcal{M}(m+1,m)$, $m\in\...
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Yang–Mills existence and mass gap official statement on Euclidean $\mathbb{R}^4$, why not Minkowski $ \mathbb{R}^{3,1}$?
Yang–Mills existence and mass gap problem is officially stated by Clay Mathematics Institute:
Yang–Mills Existence and Mass Gap.'' Prove that for any compact simple gauge group G, a non-trivial ...
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An introductory reference for tensor networks
I found a good reference on Tensor Networks: https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.10049. But I need an introductory reference with detailed proofs on Tensor Networks. Do you know another reference?
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