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Cambridge University Press eBooks

Conformal symmetry

John Cardy

Published Apr 26, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We saw in Chapter 3 that the hamiltonian for a System at a critical point flows under the renormalization group into a critical fixed point. Under a renormalization group transformation, the microscopic length scale is rescaled by a constant factor b , and so the coordinates of a given point, as measured in units of this length scale, transform according to r → b −1 r. This is called a scale transformation . Once the flows reach such a fixed point, the parameters of the hamiltonian no longer change, and it is said to be scale invariant . As well as being scale invariant, the fixed point hamiltonian usually possesses other spatial symmetries. For example, if the underlying model is defined on a lattice, so that its hamiltonian is invariant under lattice translations, the corresponding critical fixed point hamiltonian is generally invariant under arbitrary uniform translations. This is because terms which might be added to the hamiltonian which break the symmetry under continuous translations down to its subgroup of lattice translations are irrelevant at such a fixed point. Similarly, if the lattice model is invariant under a sufficiently large subgroup of the rotation group (for example, if the interactions in the x and y directions on a Square lattice are equal), then the fixed point hamiltonian enjoys full rotational invariance. As discussed on p.58, even if the interactions are anisotropic, rotational invariance may often be recovered by a suitable finite relative rescaling of the coordinates.

DOI
10.1017/cbo9781316036440.012

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We saw in Chapter 3 that the hamiltonian for a System at a critical point flows under the renormalization group into a critical fixed point. Under a renormalization group transformation, the microscopic length scale is rescaled by a constant factor b , and so the coordinates of a given point, as measured in units of this length scale, transform according to r → b −1 r. This is called a scale transformation . Once the flows reach such a fixed point, the parameters of the hamiltonian no longer change, and it is said to be scale invariant . As well as being scale invariant, the fixed point hamiltonian usually possesses other spatial symmetries. For example, if the underlying model is defined on a lattice, so that its hamiltonian is invariant under lattice translations, the corresponding critical fixed point hamiltonian is generally invariant under arbitrary uniform translations. This is because terms which might be added to the hamiltonian which break the symmetry under continuous translations down to its subgroup of lattice translations are irrelevant at such a fixed point. Similarly, if the lattice model is invariant under a sufficiently large subgroup of the rotation group (for example, if the interactions in the x and y directions on a Square lattice are equal), then the fixed point hamiltonian enjoys full rotational invariance. As discussed on p.58, even if the interactions are anisotropic, rotational invariance may often be recovered by a suitable finite relative rescaling of the coordinates.
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As discussed in the previous chapter, the phenomenological theory of critical phenomena finds a sound basis in the logical sequence of universality, scaling, relevant and irrelevant variables. The difficult problem of a large number of degrees of freedom strongly correlated within the coherence distance, which diverges at criticality, is thereby, in principle, reduced to the determination of the homogeneous form of the relevant response functions and of the evaluation of a few critical indices related to the relevant parameters, whereas the details specifying each system do not matter. In order to give a microscopic foundation to universality and to the scaling theory, an exact transformation is needed, which changes into a scaling transformation asymptotically near the critical point. This is the renormalization group (RG) approach, recently presented in a huge number of reviewpapers and books.Historically, the first comprehensive overview was given by the sixth volume of the series edited by Domb and Green (1976) and by the classic books by Patashinskij and Pokrovskij (1979) and by Ma (1976). Along with scaling theory, the field-theoretic renormalization group (RG) approach (Gell- Mann and Low (1954); Bogoliubov and Shirkov (1959); Bonch-Bruevich and Tyablikov (1962)) was introduced in critical phenomena (Di Castro and Jona-Lasinio (1969)) by showing how the RG equations generalize the universality relations in the sense that they relate one model system to another by varying the coupling and suitably rescaling the other variables and the correlation functions. At the same time a detailed analysis of the pertubative diagrammatic structure of the correlation functions together with the use of Ward identities yielded a renormalized theory (Migdal (1969); Polyakov (1968, 1969)). By iterating the RG transformation the coupling disappears from the equations near to the critical point, the homogeneous form of the static order-parameter correlation function is obtained and a microscopic definition of the critical indices is given. The scaling picture then acquires a theoretical basis. Wilson (Wilson (1971a, b); Wilson and Kogut (1974)) gave a great contribution to the understanding of the physics underlying the RG procedure and to the explicit calculation of the critical indices. He proposed a simple mathematical realization of the other very physical idea of universality due to Kadanoff of grouping together degrees of freedom on the scale s associated with larger and larger cells.
Wilson's momentum-shell transformation with the concomitant expansion around the upper critical dimension is defined. The basic notions of relevant and irrelevant couplings, renormalization flow, and fixed points are introduced. The origins of scaling and of universality are explained, and corrections to mean-field values of critical exponents are computed. The field theoretic renormalization group is briefly discussed and used to calculate the anomalous dimension. Idea We found that the direct perturbation theory in the Ginzburg–Landau–Wilson theory breaks down below the upper critical dimension because the perturbation parameter grows with the correlation length, and so becomes arbitrarily large as the critical point is approached. If the system were finite, on the other hand, the correlation length would be bound by its size, and perturbation theory could succeed. Singular thermodynamic behavior near the critical point comes from the thermodynamic limit, or, more precisely, from those modes that have arbitrary low energies in an infinitely large system. This is called the infrared singularity . This observation suggests the following strategy to avoid the problem of direct perturbation theory. First, note that mass m only provides the energy scale in Eq. (2.36). It is practical to rescale it out by absorbing it into the chemical potential, rede- fined as 2 m μ/ħ 2 → μ, and into the interaction coupling, as 2 m λ/ħ 2 → λ. Similarly, near the critical point, the temperature T ≈ T c may be replaced by the critical temperature, and then eliminated by rescaling the action as 2 m κ B T c S /ħ 2 → S.
Abstract We are part of the way towards understanding the Landau-Ginzburg model in the critical regime. We have been able to calculate two critical exponents, one of which describes the system at T = Tc and the other at T ≠ Tc. If we are prepared to accept the scaling laws for which we found experimental evidence in Chapter 1, and theoretical evidence in Chapter 5, we can stop there; all four remaining critical exponents follow. However, this is rather unsatisfactory. In Chapter 5 we saw that the scaling relations can be deduced from the properties of the critical fixed point that is reached by repeatedly reblocking and rescaling the system; it would be good to provide a similarly general derivation in the context of the Landau-Ginzburg model.
Abstract In Chapter 8 we gave an introduction to the formalism of the renormalization group. A renormalization transformation changes the scale of a system by a factor b. Systems at criticality flow to fixed points under the transformation and their critical exponents and scaling behaviour are determined by linearizing the recursion equations about the fixed point. The aim of this chapter is two-fold: firstly to illustrate these ideas by giving several examples of renormalization group transformations and secondly to demonstrate the ways in which they can be used to calculate critical properties. Our examples are divided into three classes. In Section 9.1, we shall consider a one-dimensional model where the recursion relations can be written down exactly. The drawback of this as a canonical example is that any critical behaviour is at zero temperature. The decimation transformation presented in one dimension is an example of a real-space transformation and the second task, in Section 9.2, is to show how these may be used approximately to treat models in higher dimensions. Thirdly, in Section 9.5, we shall mention the E-expansion where the renormalization takes place in momentum space. This enables an understanding of the crossover to mean-field behaviour. However, the formalism is somewhat involved and the details are beyond the scope of this book.