We present a truncation scheme of the effective-average-action approach of the nonperturbative renormalization group that allows for an accurate description of the critical regime as well as of correlation functions at finite momenta. The truncation is a natural modification of the standard derivative expansion that includes both all local correlations and two-point and four-point irreducible correlations to all orders in the derivatives. We discuss schemes for both the symmetric and the symmetry broken phase of the O(N) model and present results for D=3. All approximations are done directly in the effective average action rather than in the flow equations of irreducible vertices. The approach is numerically relatively easy to implement and yields good results for all N both for the critical exponents and for the momentum dependence of the two-point function.
We present a truncation scheme of the effective-average-action approach of the nonperturbative renormalization group that allows for an accurate description of the critical regime as well as of correlation functions at finite momenta. The truncation is a natural modification of the standard derivative expansion that includes both all local correlations and two-point and four-point irreducible correlations to all orders in the derivatives. We discuss schemes for both the symmetric and the symmetry broken phase of the O(N) model and present results for D=3. All approximations are done directly in the effective average action rather than in the flow equations of irreducible vertices. The approach is numerically relatively easy to implement and yields good results for all N both for the critical exponents and for the momentum dependence of the two-point function.
We present the implementation of the Blaizot-Méndez-Wschebor approximation scheme of the nonperturbative renormalization group we present in detail, which allows for the computation of the full-momentum dependence of correlation functions. We discuss its significance and its relation with other schemes, in particular, the derivative expansion. Quantitative results are presented for the test ground of scalar O(N) theories. Besides critical exponents, which are zero-momentum quantities, we compute the two-point function at criticality in the whole momentum range in three dimensions and, in the high-temperature phase, the universal structure factor. In all cases, we find very good agreement with the best existing results.
Continuous phase transitions provide a natural setting for understanding universality. Near criticality, the correlation length diverges, microscopic details become increasingly irrelevant, and physical observables obey scaling laws characterized by universal critical exponents. Within the Functional Renormalization Group (FRG), this scale dependence is described through the Effective Average Action, which progressively incorporates fluctuations as the momentum scale is lowered. A first part of this thesis is developed within the Local Potential Approximation (LPA), where we study multicritical fixed points of scalar field theories. Their universal properties are compared with results obtained at higher orders in the derivative expansion. Particular attention is devoted to the relation between global fixed-point potentials and their local representations through finite polynomial truncations. We show that the convergence of such expansions is constrained by the analytic structure of the global solution, and that expanding around a suitable nonzero stationary point significantly improves the reconstruction of multicritical branches. Beyond the structure of individual fixed points, a central part of this thesis concerns RG irreversibility. In two dimensions, Zamolodchikov’s c-theorem describes the flow from the ultraviolet to the infrared through a monotonically decreasing c-function. Within the FRG framework, we develop a variational procedure to reconstruct RG trajectories between fixed points and integrate the corresponding c-function along them. The resulting quantity displays monotonic behaviour and becomes increasingly stable as the truncation order is raised, providing a manifestation of RG irreversibility within the approximation considered. Finally, close to the upper critical dimensions, the linearized FRG flow around the Gaussian fixed point is naturally organized in terms of Hermite polynomials. Using the epsilon-expansion, we derive a curvature-based candidate c-function and obtain an analytic explanation for the alternating curvature of successive multicritical fixed points and for their progressive accumulation around the Gaussian fixed point.
Abstract We consider the Wetterich exact renormalization group (RG) equation. Approximate closed equations are obtained from it, applying certain truncation schemes for the effective average action. These equations are solved either purely numerically or by certain extra truncations for the potential and related quantities, called the functional truncations. Traditionally, the functional truncations consist of truncated expansions in powers of ρ ˜ − ρ ˜ 0 , where ρ ˜ ∝ ϕ 2 , φ is the averaged order parameter, and ρ ˜ 0 corresponds to the minimum of the dimensionless potential u k ( ρ ˜ ) , depending on the infrared cut-off scale k . We propose a new approach of functional truncations, using the expansion u k ( ρ ˜ ) − u k ( 0 ) = ( 1 − s ) − μ u 1 , k s + u 2 , k s 2 + ⋯ , where s = ρ ˜ / ( ρ ˜ 0 + ρ ˜ ) , ρ ˜ 0 is an optimization parameter and µ is the exponent, describing the ρ ˜ → ∞ asymptotic. The newly developed method provides accurate estimates of the critical exponents η , ν and als
We present an approximation scheme of the nonperturbative renormalization group that preserves the momentum dependence of correlation functions. This approximation scheme can be seen as a simple improvement of the local potential approximation (LPA) where the derivative terms in the effective action are promoted to arbitrary momentum-dependent functions. As in the LPA, the only field dependence comes from the effective potential, which allows us to solve the renormalization-group equations at a relatively modest numerical cost (as compared, e.g., to the Blaizot--Mend\'ez-Galain--Wschebor approximation scheme). As an application we consider the two-dimensional quantum O(N) model at zero temperature. We discuss not only the two-point correlation function but also higher-order correlation functions such as the scalar susceptibility (which allows for an investigation of the ``Higgs'' amplitude mode) and the conductivity. In particular, we show how, using Pad\'e approximants to perform the analytic continuation $i{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{n}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\omega}+i{0}^{+}$ of imaginary frequency correlation functions $\ensuremath{\chi}(i{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{n})$ computed numerically from the renormalization-group equations, one can obtain spectral functions in the real-frequency domain.
We present an extension of the functional renormalization group (FRG) framework developed to compute critical probability distributions of the order parameter to momentum-dependent observables. Focusing on the constraint effective action at fixed magnetization for the Ising universality class, we derive its exact flow equations and solve them at the second order of the derivative expansion (DE2). We solve these flow equations numerically for two- and three-dimensional systems, extract universal rate functions and momentum-dependent correlation functions, and benchmark them against Monte Carlo simulations. In three dimensions, we recover the rate function and accurately reproduce the first few Fourier modes of the constrained correlation function and demonstrate the convergence of the method. In two dimensions, the lowest-order approximations such as local potential approximation fail, and it is required to consider at least the DE2 to describe the critical point. Our results are in qualitative agreement with the numerics. We confirm the robustness of the FRG approach for calculating both zero- and finite-momentum critical observables at fixed magnetization.
We have developed a nonperturbative functional renormalization group approach for random field models and related disordered systems for which, due to the existence of many metastable states, conventional perturbation theory often fails. The approach combines an exact renormalization group equation for the effective average action with a nonperturbative approximation scheme based on a description of the probability distribution of the renormalized disorder through its cumulants. For the random field O(N) model, the minimal truncation within this scheme is shown to reproduce the known perturbative results in the appropriate limits, near the upper and lower critical dimensions and at a large number N of components, while providing a unified nonperturbative description of the full (N,d) plane, where d is the spatial dimension.