This chapter uses the assumptions introduced in Chapter 9 to show that it is indeed possible to find a non-Gaussian fixed point in dimension d = 4 - e, both in models with reflection and rotation symmetries. It briefly introduces the field theory methods that will be described more thoroughly in the following chapters. Finally, it presents a selection of numerical results concerning critical exponents and some universal amplitude ratios.
This chapter uses the assumptions introduced in Chapter 9 to show that it is indeed possible to find a non-Gaussian fixed point in dimension d = 4 - e, both in models with reflection and rotation symmetries. It briefly introduces the field theory methods that will be described more thoroughly in the following chapters. Finally, it presents a selection of numerical results concerning critical exponents and some universal amplitude ratios.
1. Quantum Field Theory and Renormalization Group 2. Gaussian Expectation Values. Steepest Descent Method . 3. Universality and Continuum Limit 4. Classical Statistical Physics: One Dimension 5. Continuum Limit and Path Integral 6. Ferromagnetic Systems. Correlations 7. Phase transitions: Generalities and Examples 8. Quasi-Gaussian Approximation: Universality, Critical Dimension 9. Renormalization Group: General Formulation 10. Perturbative Renormalization Group: Explicit Calculations 11. Renormalization group: N-component fields 12. Statistical Field Theory: Perturbative Expansion 13. The sigma4 Field Theory near Dimension 4 14. The O(N) Symmetric (phi2)2 Field Theory: Large N Limit 15. The Non-Linear sigma-Model 16. Functional Renormalization Group Appendix 1. Quantum Field Theory and Renormalization Group 2. Gaussian Expectation Values. Steepest Descent Method . 3. Universality and Continuum Limit 4. Classical Statistical Physics: One Dimension 5. Continuum Limit and Path Integral 6. Ferromagnetic Systems. Correlations 7. Phase transitions: Generalities and Examples 8. Quasi-Gaussian Approximation: Universality, Critical Dimension 9. Renormalization Group: General Formulation 10. Perturbative Renormalization Group: Explicit Calculations 11. Renormalization group: N-component fields 12. Statistical Field Theory: Perturbative Expansion 13. The sigma4 Field Theory near Dimension 4 14. The O(N) Symmetric (phi2)2 Field Theory: Large N Limit 15. The Non-Linear sigma-Model 16. Functional Renormalization Group Appendix
Abstract Chapter 5 first recalls the importance of the concept of scale decoupling in physics. It then emphasizes that quantum field theory and the theory of critical phenomena have provided two examples where this concepts fails. To deal with such a situation, a new tool has been invented: the renormalization group. In the framework of effective quantum field theory, a perturbative renormalization group has been formulated. Its implementation has led to the discovery of fixed points as zeros of beta functions, and calculations of critical exponents of a class of macroscopic phase transitions in the form of Wilson–Fisher epsilon or fixed dimension expansions. These expansions being divergent, they could summed by methods based on the Borel transformation and the determination of the large order behaviour of perturbation theory.
This text provides a thoroughly modern graduate-level introduction to the theory of critical behaviour. Beginning with a brief review of phase transitions in simple systems and of mean field theory, the text then goes on to introduce the core ideas of the renormalization group. Following chapters cover phase diagrams, fixed points, cross-over behaviour, finite-size scaling, perturbative renormalization methods, low-dimensional systems, surface critical behaviour, random systems, percolation, polymer statistics, critical dynamics and conformal symmetry. The book closes with an appendix on Gaussian integration, a selected bibliography, and a detailed index. Many problems are included. The emphasis throughout is on providing an elementary and intuitive approach. In particular, the perturbative method introduced leads, among other applications, to a simple derivation of the epsilon expansion in which all the actual calculations (at least to lowest order) reduce to simple counting, avoiding the need for Feynman diagrams.
The Ginzburg-Landau phase transition model is considered in d=4-epsilon dimensions within the renormalization group (RG) approach. The problem of existence of the non-Gaussian fixed point is discussed. An equation is derived from the first principles of the RG theory (under the assumption that the fixed point exists) for calculation of the correction-to-scaling term in the asymptotic expansion of the two-point correlation (Green's) function. It is demonstrated clearly that, within the framework of the standard methods (well justified in the vicinity of the fixed point) used in the perturbative RG theory, this equation leads to an unremovable contradiction with the known RG results. Thus, in its very basics, the RG field theory in 4-epsilon dimensions is contradictory. To avoid the contradiction, we conclude that such a non-Gaussian fixed point, as predicted by the RG field theory, does not exist. Our consideration does not exclude existence of a different fixed point.
Abstract In Chapter 14, the singular behavior of ferromagnetic systems with O(N) symmetry and short-range interactions, near a second order phase transition has been determined in the mean-field approximation, which is also a quasi-Gaussian approximation. The mean-field approximation predicts a set of universal properties, properties independent of the detailed structure of the microscopic Hamiltonian, the dimension of space, and, to a large extent, of the symmetry of systems. However, the leading corrections to the mean-field approximation, in dimensions smaller than or equal to four, diverge at the critical temperature, and the universal predictions of the mean-field approximation cannot be correct. Such a problem originates from the non-decoupling of scales and leads to the question of possible universality. In Chapter 9, the question has been answered in four dimensions using renormalization theory, and related renormalization group (RG) equations. Moreover, below four dimensions, in an expansion around the mean-field, the most singular terms near criticality can be also formally recovered from a continuum, low-mass φ4 field theory. More generally, following Wilson, to understand universality beyond the mean-field approximation, it is necessary to build a general renormalization group in the form of flow equations for effective Hamiltonians and to find fixed points of the flow equations. Near four dimensions, the flow equations can be approximated by the renormalization group of quantum field theory (QFT), and the fixed points and critical behaviours derived within the framework of the Wilson-Fisher ϵ expansion.