Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Oxford University Press eBooks

Phase transitions and renormalisation group

Jean Zinn‐Justin

Published Jan 1, 2013• 9 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

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

Related papers

Phase Transitions and Renormalization Group

Jean Zinn‐Justin

This book provides an elementary introduction to the notions of continuum limit and universality in statistical systems with a large number of degrees of freedom. The existence of a continuum limit requires the appearance of correlations at large distance, a situation that is encountered in second order phase transitions, near the critical temperature. In this context, the book emphasizes the role of gaussian distributions and their relations with the mean field approximation and Landau′s theory of critical phenomena. The book shows that quasi-gaussian or mean-field approximations cannot describe correctly phase transitions in three space dimensions. The book assigns this difficulty to the coupling of very different physical length scales, even though the systems we will consider have only local, that is, short range, interactions. To analyze the unusual situation, a new concept is required: the renormalization group, whose fixed points allow understanding the universality of physical properties at large distance, beyond mean-field theory. In the continuum limit, critical phenomena can be described by quantum field theories. In this framework, the renormalization group is directly related to the renormalization process; that is, the necessity to cancel the infinities that arise in straightforward formulations of the theory. The book discusses the renormalization group in the context of various relevant field theories. This leads to proofs of universality and to efficient tools for calculating universal quantities in a perturbative framework. Finally, the book constructs a general functional renormalization group, which can be used when perturbative methods are inadequate.

Oxford University Press eBooks•Jul 5, 2007•208 citations

The renormalization group

Alexander Altland, Benjamin D. Simons

The method of the renormalization group (RG) provides theorists with powerful and efficient tools to explore interacting theories, often in regimes where perturbation theory fails. Motivating our discussion with two introductory examples drawn from a classical and a quantum theory, we will first become acquainted with the RG as a concept whereby nonlinear theories can be analyzed beyond the level of plain perturbation theory. With this background, we will then proceed to discuss the idea and practice of RG methods in more rigorous and general terms, introducing the notion of scaling, dimensional analysis, and the connection to the general theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena. Finally, to conclude this chapter, we will visit a number of concrete implementations of the RG program introduced and exemplified on a number of canonical applications. In Chapter 5 φ 4 -theory was introduced as an archetypal model of interacting continuum theories. Motivated by the existence of nonlinearities inherent in the model, a full perturbative scheme was developed, namely Wick contractions and their diagrammatic implementation. However, from a critical perspective, one may say that such perturbative approaches present only a limited understanding. Firstly, the validity of the φ 4 -action as a useful model theory was left unjustified, i.e. the φ 4 -continuum description was obtained as a gradient expansion of, in that case, a d -dimensional Ising model. But what controls the validity of the low-order expansion? Indeed, the same question could be applied to any one of the many continuum approximations we have performed throughout the first chapters of the text.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Jun 1, 2006•0 citations

Renormalization Group: From a general concept to numbers

Jean Zinn‐Justin

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.

•Jun 19, 2019•0 citations

The renormalization group (RG) approach: The critical theory near four dimensions

Jean Zinn‐Justin

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.

•Apr 15, 2021•0 citations

Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena: Renormalisation Group Method

Deepak Kumar

This chapter describes the physics of phase transitions and critical phenomena. After introducing the thermodynamics of phase transitions, the general considerations are made explicit by presenting statistical mechanical calculations on a lattice gas model in the mean-field approximation. Phase transitions occur in macroscopic systems when one or more external parameters like temperature, pressure, electrical field, magnetic field, etc are varied. The chapter demonstrates the utility of the alternative formulations of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics in the context of phase transitions and shows how their use clarifies and unifies the theory of phase transitions. It deals with the basic thermodynamic description of a single component fluid. To understand different phases and associated transitions, one studies how the couplings flow in the parameter space under repeated Renormalization Group (RG) transformations. The flows around the fixed point are easily studied by linearizing the RG equations around the fixed points and determining the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the linearized RG transformations.

CRC Press eBooks•Apr 24, 2019•0 citations

The renormalization group approach

C. Di Castro, Roberto Raimondi

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.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Aug 27, 2015•0 citations
  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
This book provides an elementary introduction to the notions of continuum limit and universality in statistical systems with a large number of degrees of freedom. The existence of a continuum limit requires the appearance of correlations at large distance, a situation that is encountered in second order phase transitions, near the critical temperature. In this context, the book emphasizes the role of gaussian distributions and their relations with the mean field approximation and Landau′s theory of critical phenomena. The book shows that quasi-gaussian or mean-field approximations cannot describe correctly phase transitions in three space dimensions. The book assigns this difficulty to the coupling of very different physical length scales, even though the systems we will consider have only local, that is, short range, interactions. To analyze the unusual situation, a new concept is required: the renormalization group, whose fixed points allow understanding the universality of physical properties at large distance, beyond mean-field theory. In the continuum limit, critical phenomena can be described by quantum field theories. In this framework, the renormalization group is directly related to the renormalization process; that is, the necessity to cancel the infinities that arise in straightforward formulations of the theory. The book discusses the renormalization group in the context of various relevant field theories. This leads to proofs of universality and to efficient tools for calculating universal quantities in a perturbative framework. Finally, the book constructs a general functional renormalization group, which can be used when perturbative methods are inadequate.
The method of the renormalization group (RG) provides theorists with powerful and efficient tools to explore interacting theories, often in regimes where perturbation theory fails. Motivating our discussion with two introductory examples drawn from a classical and a quantum theory, we will first become acquainted with the RG as a concept whereby nonlinear theories can be analyzed beyond the level of plain perturbation theory. With this background, we will then proceed to discuss the idea and practice of RG methods in more rigorous and general terms, introducing the notion of scaling, dimensional analysis, and the connection to the general theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena. Finally, to conclude this chapter, we will visit a number of concrete implementations of the RG program introduced and exemplified on a number of canonical applications. In Chapter 5 φ 4 -theory was introduced as an archetypal model of interacting continuum theories. Motivated by the existence of nonlinearities inherent in the model, a full perturbative scheme was developed, namely Wick contractions and their diagrammatic implementation. However, from a critical perspective, one may say that such perturbative approaches present only a limited understanding. Firstly, the validity of the φ 4 -action as a useful model theory was left unjustified, i.e. the φ 4 -continuum description was obtained as a gradient expansion of, in that case, a d -dimensional Ising model. But what controls the validity of the low-order expansion? Indeed, the same question could be applied to any one of the many continuum approximations we have performed throughout the first chapters of the text.
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.
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.
This chapter describes the physics of phase transitions and critical phenomena. After introducing the thermodynamics of phase transitions, the general considerations are made explicit by presenting statistical mechanical calculations on a lattice gas model in the mean-field approximation. Phase transitions occur in macroscopic systems when one or more external parameters like temperature, pressure, electrical field, magnetic field, etc are varied. The chapter demonstrates the utility of the alternative formulations of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics in the context of phase transitions and shows how their use clarifies and unifies the theory of phase transitions. It deals with the basic thermodynamic description of a single component fluid. To understand different phases and associated transitions, one studies how the couplings flow in the parameter space under repeated Renormalization Group (RG) transformations. The flows around the fixed point are easily studied by linearizing the RG equations around the fixed points and determining the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the linearized RG transformations.
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.