Published June 15, 1983 | Version v1
Journal article

Nonperturbative analysis of the effective potential in the O(N) model

  • 1. High Energy Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439
  • 2. Insitute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106

Description

The effective potential V(Vertical Barphi-circumflexVertical Bar) of a general O(N)-symmetric scalar field theory is discussed. It is shown that the first and second derivatives of V(Vertical Barphi-circumflexVertical Bar) with respect to the magnitude Vertical Barphi-circumflexVertical Bar of the classical field cannot be negative. These properties imply that if spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs in such a model, then V(Vertical Barphi-circumflexVertical Bar) does not exist for a range of Vertical Barphi-circumflexVertical Bar, and that at most one nontrivial minimum is present in the theory. This analysis does not depend upon the spacetime dimensionality of the system or upon the particulars of any perturbation series. The results of a Monte Carlo calculation of the derivative of the effective potential in a lattice version of the theory are also presented

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Phys. Rev., D
Journal Volume
27
Journal Issue
12
Series
Phys. Rev., D.
Journal Page Range
2974-2979
ISSN
0556-2821