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# Non-Perturbative Mass Renormalization in Quenched QED from the Worldline Variational Approach

## I Introduction

Variational methods are widely used in many areas of physics but are not very prominent in field theory . This is due to the infinite number of degrees of freedom and the singular short-distance behaviour of relativistic field theories. A very successful application of variational methods in a non-relativistic field theory is provided by Feynman’s treatment of the polaron : after integrating out the phonon degrees of freedom and approximating variationally the remaining effective action by a retarded quadratic trial action one obtains the best approximation scheme which works for both small and large coupling constants. Detailed numerical investigations  have shown that Feynman’s approximate solution deviates at most $`2.2\%`$ from the true ground state energy for all coupling constants. It is therefore very attractive to apply similar techniques to problems in relativistic quantum field theory where there is much need for non-perturbative methods. In previous publications we have done that in the context of a scalar, super-renormalizable model theory .

In this paper we present the first results obtained by applying polaron variational methods to a realistic theory, namely Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) in the quenched approximation where electron-positron loops are neglected. While the actual coupling constant between electrons and photons $`\alpha =e^2/(4\pi )1/137`$ is small enough to apply perturbation theory in most cases, there is enough interest to study the theory at larger coupling: first, the strong coupling behaviour of any physical theory is of interest in itself, second, the possibility of chiral symmetry breaking  demands an investigation at large $`\alpha `$ and, finally, bound state problems are inherently non-perturbative and involve powers of $`\mathrm{ln}1/\alpha 4.92`$ in radiative corrections.

The extension of our methods to QED requires a formalism to include fermions and a treatment of the more severe singularities encountered in a renormalizable field theory rather than a super-renormalizable or non-relativistic one. We do this within the worldline technique which has recently experienced a revival. In this formulation, the degrees of freedom describing the electron are its bosonic worldline $`x_\mu (t)`$, which is the four-dimensional analogue to the polaron trajectory, as well as a Grassmannian path $`\zeta _\mu (t)`$ needed to describe the electron’s spin . Here $`t`$ is the proper time which parametrizes the paths and runs from $`0`$ to $`T`$. The dynamics of the electron in an external vector field $`A_\mu (x)`$ with field strength $`F_{\mu \nu }(x)`$ are then described by the following worldline Lagrangian

$$L=\frac{\kappa _0}{2}\dot{x}^2+i\zeta \dot{\zeta }+\frac{1}{T}\dot{x}\zeta \chi e\dot{x}A(x)\frac{ie}{\kappa _0}F_{\mu \nu }(x)\zeta ^\mu \zeta ^\nu .$$
(1)
Here $`\kappa _0`$ is an arbitrary parameter which may be used to reparametrize the proper time without changing the physics and $`\chi `$ is a Grassmannian (super-)partner of the proper time $`T`$. Note that the above action exhibits a well-known supersymmetry between bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom . For further details about the application of the worldline formalism to QED we refer the reader to Ref. .

The photon field $`A_\mu `$ may be integrated out exactly in complete analogy to the phonons in the polaron case, resulting in an effective action for the electron only

$`S_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`=`$ $`S_0{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^T}𝑑t_1𝑑t_2{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}G^{\mu \nu }(k)\left[\dot{x}_\mu (t_1)+\frac{2}{\kappa _0}\zeta _\mu (t_1)k\zeta (t_1)\right]}`$ (3)
$`\left[\dot{x}_\nu (t_2){\displaystyle \frac{2}{\kappa _0}}\zeta _\nu (t_2)k\zeta (t_2)\right]e^{ik\left[x(t_1)x(t_2)\right]}.`$
Here $`S_0`$ denotes the free action

$$S_0=_0^T𝑑t\left[\frac{\kappa _0}{2}\dot{x}^2(t)+i\zeta (t)\dot{\zeta }(t)+\frac{1}{T}\dot{x}(t)\zeta (t)\chi \right]$$
(4)
and $`G^{\mu \nu }(k)`$ the gauge-fixed photon propagator. As described in Ref. , the electron propagator is obtained by carrying out a path integral over the degrees of freedom $`x_\mu (t)`$ and $`\zeta _\mu (t)`$, as well as a weighted integral over the proper times $`T`$ and $`\chi `$, and finally identifying the Grassmannian variable $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\zeta (0)+\zeta (T)`$ with the Dirac matrix $`\gamma `$:

$`G_2(p)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\gamma \frac{}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑T{\displaystyle 𝑑\chi \mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{i}{2\kappa _0}\left[(p^2M_0^2)T+(p\mathrm{\Gamma }M_0)\chi \right]\right\}}`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒟\stackrel{~}{x}𝒟\zeta \mathrm{exp}\left[ipx+\zeta (0)\zeta (T)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left(iS_{\mathrm{eff}}\right)}{𝒟\stackrel{~}{x}𝒟\zeta \mathrm{exp}\left[ipx+\zeta (0)\zeta (T)\right]\mathrm{exp}(iS_0)}}|_{\mathrm{\Gamma }=0}.`$
Here $`M_0`$ is the bare mass and $`𝒟\stackrel{~}{x}`$ contains an integration over the endpoint $`x=x(T)`$. Note that we have divided and multiplied by the path integral for the free theory, so the bare propagator may be obtained by just ignoring the last line. For non-zero couplings, of course, the path integrals in the last line cannot be performed; these we shall approximate variationally in the next section.

## II Variational Approach

Feynman’s variational principle has its root in Jensen’s inequality for convex functions applied to $`\mathrm{exp}(S_E)`$, where $`S_E`$ is a Euclidean action. In Minkowski space and/or for complex actions the variational principle remains valid, however it becomes a stationary principle rather than a minimum principle. To be more precise, the path integral over bosonic and fermionic paths obeys

$$<\mathrm{exp}\left[i(SS_t)\right]>_t\stackrel{\mathrm{stat}.}{}\mathrm{exp}\left[iSS_t_t\right],$$
(7)
where $`<\mathrm{}>_t`$ indicates an average involving the weight function $`e^{iS_t}`$ in the relevant functional integral and $`S_t`$ is a suitable trial action. Note that corrections to this variational approximation may be calculated in a systematic way and that, furthermore, to first order in the interaction (i.e. to order $`\alpha `$) the relation is in fact an equality if $`S_t`$ reduces to the free action for small couplings.

For the trial action required in Eq. (7) we choose a general retarded quadratic action which is a two-time modification of the free action in Eq. (4)

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_t`$ $`=`$ $`S_0+i\kappa _0^2{\displaystyle _0^T}dt_1dt_2[g_B(\sigma )\dot{x}(t_1)\dot{x}(t_2)+{\displaystyle \frac{2i}{\kappa _0}}g_F^{}(\sigma )\zeta (t_1)\zeta (t_2)`$ (9)
$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{\kappa _0T}}g_{SO}^{}(\sigma )\dot{x}(t_1)\zeta (t_2)\chi ]+\lambda _1pxi\lambda _2\zeta (0)\zeta (T).`$
Here the variational parameters are contained in the retardation functions $`g_i(\sigma )`$ for bosonic, fermionic and spin-orbit interactions; these are even functions of $`\sigma =t_1t_2`$ and they become identical for a supersymmetric trial action ***We have explicitly separated out the free action in Eq. (9), which could have alternatively been added into the second term by adding $`\delta (\sigma )/(2i\kappa _0)`$ to each of the $`g_i(\sigma )`$’s. This way our retardation functions contain no distributions. Also, in the supersymmetric limit our trial action could be written in the explicitly supersymmetric notation of Ref.  as $`i\kappa _0^2_0^T𝑑t_1𝑑t_2𝑑\theta _1𝑑\theta _2g(T_{12})DX_1DX_2`$, with a single retardation function.. The variational principle ‘adjusts’ these functions in order to compensate for the fact that the true effective action (3) is not quadratic in the variables $`x(t)`$, $`\zeta (t)`$. Feynman’s polaron result was obtained by taking a specific Ansatz for the retardation functions but here we leave their functional form free. This is because one expects that the correct short-time behaviour of these functions is much more important for a renormalizable theory like QED than for the polaron problem which does not exhibit any ultraviolet divergences. Indeed one finds that for small $`\sigma `$ the “best” $`g_B(\sigma )`$ behaves like $`\sqrt{\sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{ln}\sigma `$ and $`1/\sigma `$ in the polaron, super-renormalizable and QED case, respectively. The “tilde” over the trial action indicates that it includes the boundary terms already present in Eq. (6) and that we are using “momentum averaging” . These terms, involving the external momentum $`p`$ and the Grassmann variable $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, are multiplied by additional variational parameters $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$, respectively. They provide additional freedom to modify the strength of the boundary terms. We have allowed this freedom because of our experience in scalar relativistic field theory , where the variational parameter $`\lambda _1`$ turned out to be essential for describing the instability of the Wick-Cutkosky model.

Since the trial action (9) is at most quadratic in $`x(t)`$ and $`\zeta (t)`$ it is possible to evaluate the various averages required in Eq. (7) analytically. A particular simplification occurs if one restricts oneself to $`p^2=M^2`$, where $`M`$ is the physical (i.e. pole) mass: as discussed in , the divergence of the propagator on its mass shell results from a divergence of the integral over the proper time $`T`$. Indeed, the variational approximation (7) results in an electron propagator \[see Eq. (6)\] which has the form

$`G_2^{\mathrm{var}}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\gamma \frac{}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑T{\displaystyle 𝑑\chi \mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{iT}{2\kappa _0}\left[M_0^2+p^2(2\lambda \lambda ^2)\right]\right\}}`$ (11)
$`\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{iT}{\kappa _0}}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }[A_B]\mathrm{\Omega }[A_F]+V[\mu _B^2,\mu _F^2]\right)+F(\chi ,\mathrm{\Gamma };T;p)\right\}|_{\mathrm{\Gamma }=0},`$
where $`\lambda `$ (which is defined below), the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$’s and $`V`$ are $`T`$-independent and the function $`F(\chi ,\mathrm{\Gamma };T;p)`$ is subleading in $`T`$. The latter therefore contains information relevant for the wavefunction renormalization of $`G_2^{\mathrm{var}}(p)`$, and not the pole structure. We leave the discussion of this function, which also contains the entire $`\chi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ dependence (and hence the spin structure of the propagator), for a future publication as it is not required for our present investigation.

From Eq. (11) we see that the bare and physical mass are related through

$$M_0^2=M^2(2\lambda \lambda ^2)2\left(\mathrm{\Omega }[A_B]\mathrm{\Omega }[A_F]+V[\mu _B^2,\mu _F^2]\right).$$
(12)
We have labeled this relationship Mano’s equation as K. Mano first applied polaron techniques to a scalar relativistic field theory . Note that, on mass shell, the variational equations resulting from Eq. (7) are equivalent to demanding stationarity of Mano’s equation.

The nomenclature in Mano’s equation corresponds to that introduced in Ref. : $`\mathrm{\Omega }[A_B]`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }[A_F]`$ originate from contributions (bosonic and fermionic, respectively) of the terms in Eq. (7) involving $`S_0`$ and $`S_t`$ only. They are the analogue to the kinetic term in variational quantum mechanical calculations, while the analogue of the contribution from a potential term (explicitly proportional to the strength of the coupling) resides in $`V`$.

Similarly to Ref. , it is useful to express the retardation functions in terms of the variational “profile functions” $`A_i(E)`$ and the “pseudotimes” $`\mu _i^2(\sigma ),i=B,F`$ defined by

$`A_i(E)`$ $`=`$ $`1+i\kappa _0{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\sigma g_i(\sigma )\mathrm{cos}(E\sigma )`$ (13)
$`\mu _i^2(\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E{\displaystyle \frac{1}{E^2A_i(E)}}\mathrm{sin}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{E\sigma }{2}}\right),`$ (14)
respectively It is easy to show from Eq. (14) that, as long as $`A_i(0)`$ and $`A_i(\mathrm{})`$ exist, for both asymptotically large and infinitesimally small times $`\sigma `$ the functions $`\mu _i^2(\sigma )`$ become proportional to $`\sigma `$; hence the label “pseudotime”. In the free case one has $`A_i(E)=1,\mu _i^2(\sigma )=\sigma ,\lambda =1,\mathrm{\Omega }_i=0`$. The other variational function $`A_{SO}(E)`$ and parameter $`\lambda _2`$ are linked to the spin structure of the propagator and therefore do not show up in Mano’s equation.. Furthermore, it is convenient to define $`\lambda =\lambda _1/A_B(0)`$. Indeed it turns out that the averages in Eq. (7) can be directly expressed in terms of these quantities. The kinetic terms in Eqs. (11) and (12) become

$$\mathrm{\Omega }[A_i]=\frac{d\kappa _0}{2i\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑E\left(\mathrm{log}A_i(E)+\frac{1}{A_i(E)}\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}\right),$$
(15)
where $`d`$ is the spacetime dimension $`d=42ϵ`$. This is identical to the result in Ref.  if $`d=4`$ and $`\kappa _0=i`$ (i.e. the Euclidean formulation) are taken. The specific properties of QED are encoded in the “interaction” term $`V`$ which, with $`V=V_1+V_2`$, reads

$`V_1[\mu _B^2,\mu _F^2]`$ $`=`$ $`(d1)\pi \alpha {\displaystyle \frac{\nu ^{2ϵ}}{\kappa _0}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}\left\{\left[\dot{\mu }_F^2(\sigma )\right]^2\left[\dot{\mu }_B^2(\sigma )\right]^2\right\}E(k,\sigma )}`$ (16)
$`V_2[\mu _B^2]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \alpha \nu ^{2ϵ}\lambda ^2}{\kappa _0}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}\frac{1}{k^2}\left[M^2+(d2)\frac{(kp)^2}{k^2}\right]E(k,\sigma )}.`$ (17)
Note that by $`\dot{\mu }^2(\sigma )`$ we mean $`\frac{d}{d\sigma }\mu ^2(\sigma )`$ (and not $`\left[\frac{d}{d\sigma }\mu (\sigma )\right]^2`$), the function $`E(k,\sigma )`$ is defined to be $`E(k,\sigma )=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\left[k^2\mu _B^2(\sigma )2\lambda kp\sigma \right]/(2\kappa _0)\right\}`$ and of course $`p^2=M^2`$. The fermionic contributions, both in the ‘kinetic term’ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_F`$ as well as in $`V_1`$, appear with an opposite sign to the bosonic contributions. The reason for the separation of $`V`$ into two pieces will become apparent below.

By construction Mano’s equation is stationary under variation of the parameters. It is important to note that we have not demanded the various retardation functions $`g_{B,F}`$ (as well as $`g_{SO}`$, which only plays a role for the residue) to be identical (before variation). Had we done so, the resulting profile functions $`A_B`$ and $`A_F`$ would have also been identical, the pseudotimes $`\mu _{B,F}^2`$ would have been one and the same and hence $`\mathrm{\Omega }[A_B]\mathrm{\Omega }[A_F]`$ as well as $`V_1`$ would have vanished. The absence of a ‘kinetic’ contribution would have been fatal to the variational principle as this contribution provides the restoring ‘force’ to the potential $`V`$. On the other hand, closer examination of $`V_1`$ reveals that $`\dot{\mu }_B^2\dot{\mu }_F^2`$ is also dangerous: The contribution of each of these terms is quadratically (UV) divergent if the dimensional regularization is replaced by a momentum cutoff. This may be checked by either directly substituting the small $`\sigma `$ limit of $`\mu _i^2(\sigma )`$ into $`V_1`$ or by noting that for scalar QED, where the Grassmannian path integrals are absent, the remaining contribution from $`\dot{\mu }_B^2`$ gives rise to the quadratically divergent one-loop diagram of that theory. It is the combination $`(\dot{\mu }_B^2)^2(\dot{\mu }_F^2)^2`$ which displays the usual logarithmic UV divergence of QED. Although at leading order in the coupling we are guaranteed to reproduce the correct perturbative result \[see Eq. (7)\], at higher orders the cancellation of these quadratic divergences is ensured by the supersymmetry. To summarize, on the one hand the trial action cannot be restricted to contain only supersymmetric terms but on the other hand allowing non-supersymmetric terms may destroy the renormalizability of the theory.

The way out of this predicament is provided by the variational principle itself: although it is unavoidable that the trial action breaks supersymmetry, the actual solutions to the variational equations may in fact be nearly supersymmetric. That this indeed turns out to be the case may be seen by recognizing that $`V_1`$ is the most singular part of the interaction whereas $`V_2`$, which involves only bosonic contributions and is the only source of supersymmetry breaking, is similar in structure to the scalar super-renormalizable model studied before . Divergent contributions in the limit $`ϵ0`$ to the variational equations are solely determined by $`V_1`$. Therefore, the divergent contributions to $`A_B(E)`$ and $`A_F(E)`$, and hence to $`\dot{\mu }_B^2`$ and $`\dot{\mu }_F^2`$, are identical.

In this paper we confine ourselves to studying this divergent structure and so it is sufficient to set $`A_B(E)=A_F(E)A(E)`$. The corresponding variational equation becomes, after performing the $`k`$-integration in Eq. (16),

$$A(E)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}+(1ϵ)c_ϵ\nu ^{2ϵ}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\sigma \frac{\mathrm{sin}E\sigma }{E}\frac{\dot{\mu }^2(\sigma )}{\left[\mu ^2(\sigma )\right]^{2ϵ}}\mathrm{exp}\left[i\frac{\lambda ^2M^2\sigma ^2}{2\kappa _0\mu ^2(\sigma )}\right].$$
(18)
Note that here we have now also dropped the subscript on the pseudotime as it is no longer relevant and we have defined

$$c_ϵ=\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left(\frac{2\pi i}{\kappa _0}\right)^ϵ\frac{32ϵ}{(1ϵ)(2ϵ)}\stackrel{ϵ0}{}\frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }.$$
(19)
Since $`\mu ^2(\sigma )\sigma `$ for small $`\sigma `$ one sees that the $`\sigma `$-integral in Eq. (18) would diverge for $`ϵ=0`$; this just reflects the $`1/\sigma `$ behaviour of the retardation function in Eq. (13) as was discussed before. The crucial difference between super-renormalizable and renormalizable theories therefore is that for the latter ones the variational equations themselves are UV-divergent. In this way the divergent structure of higher-order diagrams is effectively summed up.

We may now simplify $`V`$ by making use of the above “asymptotic” supersymmetry. The only remaining contribution is that of $`V_2\lambda ^2M^2W_2`$ which becomes, after carrying out the integration over the momentum $`k`$,

$$W_2=\frac{(2ϵ)(1ϵ)}{2}c_ϵ\nu ^{2ϵ}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\sigma }{\left[\mu ^2(\sigma )\right]^{1ϵ}}_0^1\frac{du}{u^ϵ}[ϵ+(1ϵ)u]\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{i}{2\kappa _0}\frac{\lambda ^2M^2\sigma ^2}{\mu ^2(\sigma )}u\right)$$
(20)
where the $`u`$ integration arises from an exponentiation of the photon propagator in Eq. (17) in a similar way as in Ref. . With this, the variational equation for $`\lambda `$ in this asymptotic limit becomes

$$\lambda =\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}\frac{}{\lambda }(\lambda ^2W_2).$$
(21)
## III Mass Renormalization

Renormalizability of (quenched) QED means that all divergences can be collected in the mass and wave function renormalization constants. In the present investigation we concentrate on the mass renormalization constant in the MS scheme, $`Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}`$, defined via $`M_0=Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}M_\nu `$ where $`M_\nu `$ is an intermediate mass scale. In this scheme it has the perturbative expansion

$$Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}+\frac{b_{11}}{ϵ}\frac{\alpha }{\pi }+\left[\frac{b_{22}}{ϵ^2}+\frac{b_{12}}{ϵ}\right]\left(\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\right)^2+\mathrm{},$$
(22)
where it is known from perturbation theory  that the expansion coefficients $`b_{ij}`$ are pure, i.e. mass independent, numbers. Furthermore, the renormalization group provides relations between many of these coefficients; at order $`n`$ in perturbation theory only the coefficient $`b_{1n}`$ contains new information. This is encapsulated in the solution of the renormalization group equation for $`Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}`$, namely

$$Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2ϵ}_0^\alpha 𝑑x\frac{\gamma _m(x)}{x}\right]=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2ϵ}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\gamma _{n1}}{n}\left(\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\right)^n\right],$$
(23)
where $`\gamma _m(\alpha )`$ is the anomalous mass dimension of the electron . In perturbation theory, $`\gamma _m(\alpha )`$ can be extracted from perturbative QCD calculations, which have been performed up to 4-loop order. One obtains $`\gamma _0=3/2,\gamma _1=3/16`$ , $`\gamma _2=\frac{129}{64}=2.0156`$ and $`\gamma _3=\frac{1}{128}\left[\frac{1261}{8}+336\zeta (3)\right]=4.3868`$ .

As the variational calculation is applicable for arbitrary values of the coupling, comparison to perturbation theory provides a useful guide to its utility. As mentioned before, to first order in the coupling the calculation is guaranteed to be exact as long as one has used a trial action which can reduce to the free action in the limit $`\alpha 0`$. A genuine test of the variational scheme is only obtained by comparing the coefficients in higher order. It should be noted that this test is much more demanding than in the polaron case where one can only compare the numerical value of the second-order coefficient for the energy: here, in addition, one tests the $`ϵ`$-dependence of this coefficient and also whether it is mass-independent as it should be in the exact theory.

In order to know $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`V`$ at second order in $`\alpha `$ one requires the variational parameters up to first order in $`\alpha `$. These may be obtained by inserting the zeroth order results $`\mu ^2(\sigma )=\sigma `$ and $`\lambda =1`$ into the variational equations for the profile function (18) and $`\lambda `$ (21). The solutions then need to be substituted back into $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ \[Eq. (15)\] and $`V_2`$ \[Eq. (20)\]. Having done this, $`Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}`$ may then be extracted from Mano’s equation, yielding $`b_{22}^{\mathrm{var}}=9/32`$, which is correct, and $`b_{12}^{\mathrm{var}}=0`$, which should be compared to the exact value of $`b_{12}=3/64`$. As in the Wick-Cutkosky model, the $`\lambda `$-variation is of crucial importance: for example, fixing $`\lambda =1`$ would give a wrong result for $`b_{22}`$ and a logarithmic mass-dependence for $`b_{12}`$.

It is possible to develop the perturbative expansion of the variational result further, with the result that no mass dependence in the coefficients appears even at higher order. Indeed, it turns out that it is in fact possible to obtain the full analytic expression for the anomalous mass dimension in the worldline variational approximation. We shall sketch the derivation below, leaving the technical details for the Appendix to this paper.

To begin with, we first drop the mass term in the variational equation (18) since it only affects long-distance physics and not the ultra-violet behaviour contained in $`Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}`$ . Then we change variables from $`\sigma `$ to $`y=c_ϵ(\nu ^2\sigma )^ϵ`$, and equivalently for $`E`$. This has the effect of making the system of integral equations (14,18,20) independent of the coupling. We write these explicitly in the Appendix, where it is shown that if, for small $`ϵ`$, the pseudotime has the form

$$\frac{\mu ^2(\sigma )}{\sigma }=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\omega _0(y)}{ϵ}+O(ϵ^0)\right]$$
(24)
then the anomalous mass dimension may be written in terms of this function $`\omega _0(y)`$, i.e.

$$\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}=\frac{v(y_0)}{1v(y_0)},$$
(25)
where $`v(y)=y\omega _0^{}(y)`$ and $`y_0`$ is determined by the implicit equation

$$y_0=\frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }e^{\omega _0(y_0)}.$$
(26)
On the other hand, it can also be shown (see the Appendix) that the variational equation for the pseudotime translates into an equation for $`\omega _0(y)`$, i.e.

$$\frac{e^{\omega _0(y)}}{y}=\frac{\pi }{2}[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}v(y)]\mathrm{cot}\left[\frac{\pi }{2}v(y)\right].$$
(27)
This equation must in general be solved numerically. However, we note that the calculation of the anomalous mass dimension in Eq. (25) only requires knowledge of the function $`v(y)`$ at $`y=y_0`$. Furthermore, it is remarkable that, at this value of $`y`$, the combination $`e^{\omega _0(y)}/y`$ is precisely the combination that is fixed in terms of the coupling constant \[see Eq. (26)\]. Hence, at $`y=y_0`$, the the L.H.S of Eq. (27) may be written in terms of $`\alpha `$ while on the R.H.S. we can eliminate $`v(y_0)`$ completely in terms of $`\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}`$ by making use of Eq. (25). One is left with a simple implicit algebraic equation for the anomalous dimension

$$\frac{3}{4}\alpha =\left(\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}\right)\mathrm{tan}\left(\frac{\pi /2\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}}{1+\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}}\right),$$
(28)
without ever having actually solved the variational equations themselves. Eq. (28) is the main result of this paper.

## IV Discussion

When expanded in powers of $`\alpha `$, Eq. (28) immediately yields

$$\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}(\alpha )=\frac{3}{2}\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\frac{9}{32}\pi ^2\left(\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\right)^3+\frac{27}{32}\pi ^2\left(\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\right)^4\frac{243}{128}\pi ^2\left(1\frac{\pi ^2}{20}\right)\left(\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\right)^5+𝒪(\alpha ^6),$$
(29)
which may be compared to perturbation theory. Numerically the values of the coefficients are different but of the same order of magnitude as the exact perturbative results. Note, however, that this comparison is not particularly meaningful: the variational result is an approximation which is valid at all $`\alpha `$. It need not have the same, or even approximately the same, perturbative expansion in $`\alpha `$ as the exact result. It should, however, be numerically similar. In Fig. 1 we plot the variational result as a function of the coupling and compare it to perturbation theory up to 4-loop order. For $`\alpha `$ $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ $`1`$ the 3- and 4-loop anomalous dimensions start to deviate so much from each other that one cannot trust either of them. Also shown is the result up to 5 loops, where the 5-loop coefficient has been estimated from Padé approximations to the perturbation theory (see Eq. (2.12) of Ref. , which needs to be adapted to QED with $`n_f=0`$ flavours; one finds $`\gamma _4^{\mathrm{Pade}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}3.848}`$). Clearly this does not significantly extend the numerical validity of the perturbative result. In short, the variational estimate for $`\gamma _m`$ is roughly in agreement with (albeit apparently a little below) the perturbative result in the region where the perturbative result can be trusted.

Also shown in Fig. 1 is the only other easily available non-perturbative result for $`\gamma _m^{\mathrm{MS}}`$ based on the use of dimensionally regularized Dyson-Schwinger (DS) equations in “rainbow approximation” within the Landau gauge. This may be obtained by adapting the discussion in Ref. to finite $`M_0`$, with the result that $`\gamma _m^{\mathrm{DS}}=1\sqrt{13\alpha /\pi }`$ (which is the same as derived by Miransky  using a hard momentum cutoff). We see that this result deviates from perturbation theory in a region where, at least numerically, perturbation theory still appears to converge. Above $`\alpha =\pi /3=1.047`$ the DS result becomes complex, this value of the coupling constant coinciding with the coupling $`\alpha _{cr}`$ at which the onset of chiral symmetry breaking takes place in those calculations. This is in contrast to the variational result which remains real for all values of the coupling and in fact has the strong coupling limit

$$\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}(\alpha )\stackrel{\alpha \mathrm{}}{}\frac{1}{4}\sqrt{6\pi \alpha }\frac{1}{2}+𝒪\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{\alpha }}\right).$$
(30)
Further investigations are necessary to clarify the absence of any obvious sign of chiral symmetry breaking in the variational result for $`\gamma _m^{\mathrm{MS}}(\alpha )`$ The reader should note that the issue of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in a dimensionally regulated theory is a notoriously subtle problem; see Ref. . In particular, it was shown there that if four dimensional quenched QED breaks chiral symmetry above a critical coupling than the dimensionally regularized theory will break it for all couplings at finite $`ϵ`$.. Indeed, in order to investigate the issue of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, it would seem to be more straightforward, at least conceptually, to set $`M_0`$ on the right hand side of Mano’s equation (12) to zero and to see if the variational equations can be satisfied in this case (for a finite physical mass $`M`$). This, however, goes considerably beyond the scope of this paper: we have merely calculated $`Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}=M_0/M_\nu `$ (or, more precisely, $`\gamma _m^{\mathrm{MS}}`$), which meant that we could simplify the calculation by i) restricting ourselves to considering the supersymmetric massless limit of the variational equations in Section II and ii) only taking into account the most divergent contributions (as $`ϵ0`$) to the variational equations, as well as to $`W_2`$, in Section III and the Appendix of this paper. In a full calculation of the R.H.S. of Mano’s equation (i.e. the additional calculation of the finite renormalization $`M_\nu /M`$) these two simplifications should not be made §§§This situation is analogous to what is the case in perturbative calculations, where anomalous dimensions of operators are far easier to calculate than finite contributions.. In other words, even if $`Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}0`$, dynamical chiral symmetry breaking can still occur if $`M_\nu /M`$ vanishes for finite $`M`$.

It is interesting to note, however, that there are also some strong similarities in the analytic structure of the variational and DS result. A perturbative inversion of Eq. (28) , i.e. the expansion $`\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}(\alpha )=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}c_n\alpha ^n`$, has a finite radius of convergence due to a branch cut in the complex $`\alpha `$ plane. The position of this cut, and hence the radius of convergence, can be determined most easily by searching for the value of $`\alpha `$ at which Eq. (28) has two solutions for $`\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}`$ which are infinitesimally close to each other. This amounts to demanding that Eq. (28) is satisfied and at the same time the derivative of its R.H.S. vanishes, i.e.

$$0=\mathrm{cot}\left(\frac{\pi /2}{1+\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}}\right)+\frac{\pi /2}{1+\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}}/\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{\pi /2}{1+\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}}\right).$$
(31)
One finds that $`\alpha _{con}=0.7934`$, which is not too different from the radius of convergence of the DS result . It is not clear whether this similarity between $`\alpha _{cr}`$ and $`\alpha _{con}`$ is accidental or not.

In connection with this, it is interesting to note that for large $`n`$ the behaviour of the expansion coefficients $`c_n`$ in both the variational result as well as the DS result are rather similar:

$$c_n\alpha _{con}^n\frac{e^\beta }{n^{3/2}}\mathrm{sin}\left[\left(a+\frac{5\pi }{7}\right)n\frac{3\pi }{7}+b\right],$$
(32)
where numerically $`\beta 1.38`$, $`a2.3\times 10^3`$ and $`b8.27\times 10^2`$. For the DS result one obtains $`\beta =\mathrm{log}(2\sqrt{\pi })=1.27`$ and the sine function is absent. It is the sine function in the variational result which is responsible for placing the branchpoint (which, for the DS result, is on the positive real axis) into the complex plane. Furthermore, it is remarkable that the large-$`\alpha `$ limit of $`|\gamma _m(\alpha )|`$ obtained in Eq. (30) is almost the same as for the DS result: $`|\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}(\alpha )|1.09\sqrt{\alpha }`$ vs. $`|\gamma _m^{\mathrm{DS}}(\alpha )|0.98\sqrt{\alpha }`$.

It should be pointed out that a finite radius of convergence of the perturbation expansion is not what one generally expects from calculations of large orders of perturbation theory using the methods of Lipatov and others . Rather, the factorial growth of the number of diagrams at nth order in perturbation theory tends to lead to a vanishing radius of convergence. As has been observed elsewhere , it can be shown that the variational calculation contains (pieces of) all possible Feynman diagrams at any order in perturbation theory. One concludes, therefore, that at nth order in perturbation theory there are either strong cancellations between diagrams in the variational calculation or that $`𝒪(n!)`$ of them give a vanishing contribution.

## V Summary and Outlook

We have applied polaron variational techniques to quenched QED in $`3+1`$ dimensions and obtained, within the MS scheme, a remarkably simple expression for the anomalous mass dimension valid for arbitrary couplings. The approach has considerable advantages over other techniques in that it automatically maintains gauge invariance, as well as the requirements of the renormalization group, and corrections can be systematically calculated (as has been done in the polaron case ). Furthermore, we have shown that the numerical results for $`\gamma _m`$ are rather reasonable at small coupling and that at large couplings the perturbative expansion of this quantity fails in a way similar to rainbow DS results. It would be interesting to compare to DS calculations which go beyond the ladder approximation, thus decreasing the strong gauge dependence inherent in that approximation. Furthermore, variational calculations with more general trial actions could give an indication whether this analytic structure is robust, thus indicating possible large cancellations between diagrams at high order in the perturbation theory of quenched QED, or whether this structure is just an artifact of the particular trial action used in this paper. Finally, we note that the calculation of physical observables or application to bound state problems also seem feasible within the variational worldline approach developed here.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Reinhard Alkofer for helpful discussions. One of us (AWS) is supported by the Australian Research Council through an Australian Research Fellowship. C.A. would like to thank PSI for its hospitality on several visits during which parts of this work were done.

## Appendix

In this Appendix we provide some of the technical details which enter into the derivation of the variational approximation to the anomalous dimension. To begin with, we shall scale the trivial $`\sigma `$ dependence out of $`\mu ^2(\sigma )`$ and define the reduced pseudotime $`s(\sigma )`$ as

$$\mu ^2(\sigma )=\sigma s(\sigma ).$$
(A.1)
As argued in the main text, mass terms can be dropped for the calculation of the mass anomalous dimension. A perturbative evaluation of the variational equations (18) and (14) for $`M=0`$ then shows that profile function and reduced pseudotime have an expansion in powers of $`E^ϵ`$ and $`\sigma ^ϵ`$, respectively:

$$A(E)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}+\underset{n=1}{}A_n\left(\frac{\nu ^2}{E}\right)^{nϵ},s(\sigma )=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}+\underset{n=1}{}s_n\left(\nu ^2\sigma \right)^{nϵ}.$$
(A.2)
One finds

$`A_1`$ $`=`$ $`c_ϵ\mathrm{\Gamma }(ϵ)\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ\pi }{2}}\right)\stackrel{ϵ0}{}{\displaystyle \frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}},s_1={\displaystyle \frac{c_ϵ}{ϵ(1+ϵ)}}\stackrel{ϵ0}{}{\displaystyle \frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}}`$ (A.3)
$`A_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{c_ϵ}{ϵ}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1ϵ}{1+ϵ}}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2ϵ)\mathrm{cos}(ϵ\pi )\stackrel{ϵ0}{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}}\right)^2`$ (A.4)
$`s_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{c_ϵ}{ϵ}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+2ϵ}}\left[\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{cos}(ϵ\pi )}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1+ϵ)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2ϵ)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1ϵ}{1+ϵ}}\right]\stackrel{ϵ0}{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}}\right)^2.`$ (A.5)
This suggests that perhaps the leading $`ϵ`$-behaviour of the coefficients is

$$A_n\stackrel{ϵ0}{}\frac{1}{n!}\left(\frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }\frac{1}{ϵ}\right)^n,s_n\stackrel{ϵ0}{}\frac{(1)^n}{n!}\left(\frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }\frac{1}{ϵ}\right)^n.$$
(A.6)
In view of these results we rewrite all equations in terms of the dimensionless quantities

$$y=c_ϵ\left(\nu ^2\sigma \right)^ϵ,z=c_ϵ\left(\frac{\nu ^2}{E}\right)^ϵ$$
(A.7)
where we have also rescaled by $`c_ϵ`$ (which is linear in the coupling) because the mass scale $`\nu `$ always appears in the combination $`\alpha \nu ^{2ϵ}`$ in dimensional regularization. In a similar way, the variational parameter $`\lambda `$ almost always appears in the combination $`\lambda M`$, so it is convenient to define the dimensionless combination

$$a_ϵ=c_ϵ\left(\frac{2\kappa _0\nu ^2}{i\lambda ^2M^2}\right)^ϵ.$$
(A.8)
With these definitions, the massless variational equation (18) for $`A(E)`$ may be brought into the form

$$A(z)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}+\frac{1}{ϵ}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑y\frac{\mathrm{cos}(y/z)^{1/ϵ}}{[s(y)]^{1ϵ}}.$$
(A.9)
The reduced pseudotime \[ i.e. the rescaled version of Eq. (14) \] is now given by

$$s(y)=\frac{2}{\pi }\frac{1}{ϵ}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z\frac{1}{z}\left(\frac{z}{y}\right)^{1/ϵ}\frac{1\mathrm{cos}(y/z)^{1/ϵ}}{A(z)},$$
(A.10)
while the rescaled potential $`W_2`$ becomes a function of $`a_ϵ`$ alone:

$$W_2(a_ϵ)=\frac{(2ϵ)(1ϵ)}{2ϵ}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dy}{[s(y)]^{1ϵ}}_0^1\frac{du}{u^ϵ}[ϵ+(1ϵ)u]\mathrm{exp}\left[(y/a_ϵ)^{1/ϵ}\frac{u}{s(y)}\right]$$
(A.11)
and hence the variational equation (21) for $`\lambda `$ becomes

$$\frac{1}{\lambda }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}+\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}2}W_2(a_ϵ)\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}2}ϵa_ϵW_2^{}(a_ϵ).$$
(A.12)
The anomalous mass dimension in the MS scheme may be defined \[ see Eq. (23) \] through

$$\gamma _m=\underset{ϵ0}{lim}ϵ\frac{\alpha }{Z_M^2}\frac{}{\alpha }Z_M^2.$$
(A.13)
Note that this equation is correct independently of whether $`Z_M`$ has been calculated in the MS scheme or whether it is defined through Mano’s equation by $`Z_MM_0/M`$. It is because of this fact that we can derive a nonperturbative expression for $`\gamma _m`$ in the MS scheme, even though this scheme is usually only used within the context of perturbation theory.

As the $`\alpha `$ dependence of $`Z_M`$ now only enters through the variable $`a_ϵ`$ (and of course implicitly through the variational parameters), it is not surprising that we may use the variational equation (A.12) for $`\lambda `$ to simplify $`\gamma _m`$. Indeed, differentiating Mano’s equation with respect to the coupling gives

$$\frac{}{\alpha }Z_M^2=\frac{\lambda }{\alpha }\frac{}{\lambda }Z_M^2\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}2}\frac{a_ϵ}{\alpha }\lambda ^2W_2^{}(a_ϵ).$$
(A.14)
The first term is zero because of the variational equation for $`\lambda `$, $`a_ϵ/\alpha `$ is just $`a_ϵ/\alpha `$ and by substituting the variational equation for $`\lambda `$ into Mano’s equation we find

$$Z_M^2=\lambda [\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}2ϵ\lambda a_ϵW_2^{}(a_ϵ)].$$
(A.15)
Hence the anomalous mass dimension is just given by

$$\gamma _m=\underset{ϵ0}{lim}\frac{2ϵ\lambda a_ϵW_2^{}(a_ϵ)}{1\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}2}ϵ\lambda a_ϵW_2^{}(a_ϵ)}.$$
(A.16)
In order to proceed further, we need to evaluate $`W_2(a_ϵ)`$. In general one would need to do this numerically, however fortunately in Eq. (A.16) only the small-$`ϵ`$ limit is required. Let us assume that the reduced pseudotime may be written as

$$s(y)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\omega (y,ϵ)}{ϵ}\right],$$
(A.17)
where $`\omega _0(y)lim_{ϵ0}\omega (y,ϵ)`$ is finite. This is supported by the perturbative results given in Eqs. (A.2) and (A.6) and we shall show that this holds in general when we solve the variational equations below. In this case the exponential in Eq. (A.11) has the argument

$$\left(\frac{y}{a_ϵ}e^{\omega (y,ϵ)}\right)^{1/ϵ}u.$$
(A.18)
If the term in brackets is larger than one, this argument will become arbitrarily large (and negative) in the limit $`ϵ0`$, hence it will lead to a vanishing contribution to the integral. If the term in brackets is smaller than one, however, the argument goes to zero, the exponential factor in Eq. (A.11) may be replaced by unity and the integral over $`u`$ may be performed, yielding

$$W_2(a_ϵ)\stackrel{ϵ0}{}\frac{1}{2ϵ}_0^{y_0}𝑑y\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\omega (y,ϵ)}{ϵ}(1ϵ)\right],$$
(A.19)
where $`y_0`$ is given by the equation

$$y_0e^{\omega _0(y_0)}=\underset{ϵ0}{lim}a_ϵ.$$
(A.20)
We have assumed here that $`ye^{\omega _0(y)}`$ is an increasing function of $`y`$, which will turn out to be the case. The leading term in Eq. (A.19) may be obtained by integration by parts, with the result

$$W_2(a_ϵ)\stackrel{ϵ0}{}\frac{1}{2\omega ^{}(y_0,ϵ)}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\omega (y_0,ϵ)}{ϵ}(1ϵ)\right].$$
(A.21)
We also require the derivative of this function, which is most easily obtained by direct differentiation of Eq. (A.19):

$$W_2^{}(a_ϵ)\stackrel{ϵ0}{}\frac{1}{2ϵ}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\omega (y_0,ϵ)}{ϵ}(1ϵ)\right]\frac{e^{\omega (y_0,ϵ)}}{1+y_0\omega ^{}(y_0,ϵ)}.$$
(A.22)
Substitution into the variational equation for $`\lambda `$ yields

$$\lambda \stackrel{ϵ0}{}\omega ^{}(y_0,ϵ)\frac{1+y_0\omega ^{}(y_0,ϵ)}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\omega (y_0,ϵ)}{ϵ}(1ϵ)\right]}$$
(A.23)
and hence

$$2ϵ\lambda a_ϵW_2^{}(a_ϵ)\stackrel{ϵ0}{}y_0\omega ^{}(y_0,ϵ)$$
(A.24)
so that the anomalous dimension becomes

$$\gamma _m=\frac{y_0\omega _0^{}(y_0)}{1y_0\omega _0^{}(y_0)}.$$
(A.25)
We stress that only the last line is exact while the previous ones have correction terms for finite $`ϵ`$. In particular, the calculation of $`Z_M=M_0/M`$ (as opposed to $`Z_M^{\mathrm{MS}}=M_0/M_\nu `$) would require these additional terms and hence the result, unfortunately, does not shed light on whether $`Z_M`$ could in fact be zero for finite $`M`$, which would signal chiral symmetry breaking. Note that the limit $`ϵ0`$ in Eq. (A.20) needs some care: naively, one would conclude from the definition (A.8) that the R.H.S. equals $`lim_{ϵ0}c_ϵ=3\alpha /(2\pi )`$ but Eq. (A.23) shows that the variational parameter $`\lambda `$ vanishes like $`\mathrm{exp}(\omega _0(y_0)/ϵ)`$ and therefore also gives a contribution:

$$y_0e^{\omega _0(y_0)}=\frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }e^{2\omega _0(y_0)},$$
(A.26)
this being the result (26) quoted in the main text.

It now remains to calculate the function $`\omega _0(y)`$. The arguments used to derive the approximate expression for $`W_2(a_ϵ)`$ in Eq. (A.19) are more difficult to apply to the variational equation (A.9) for $`A(z)`$ and the definition (A.10) of $`s(y)`$ because of the rapidly oscillating trigonometric functions appearing in their integrands. We shall therefore adopt a more systematic approach at this stage and note that it is possible to write these equations in a differential form. Consider, for example, an integral of the type

$$I_ϵ(z)=_0^{\mathrm{}}dyf(y)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{y}{z}\right)^{1/ϵ}.$$
(A.27)
By changing integration variable to $`y^{1/ϵ}`$ and Taylor expanding the function $`f(y)`$ we may carry out the integration term by term by making use of the integral

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑yy^{q1}\mathrm{cos}y=\mathrm{\Gamma }(q)\mathrm{cos}\left(q\frac{\pi }{2}\right).$$
(A.28)
Hence we obtain

$$I_ϵ(z)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}f^{(n)}(0)\frac{z^{n+1}}{(n+1)!}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left[1+(n+1)ϵ\right]\mathrm{cos}\left[(n+1)ϵ\frac{\pi }{2}\right].$$
(A.29)
This expression may be resummed, by defining the dilatation operator $`D_zz\frac{d}{dz}`$, into the compact form

$$I_ϵ(z)=\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+ϵD_z)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi }{2}ϵD_z\right)_0^zdyf(y)=:\gamma _c\left(ϵD_z\right)_0^zdyf(y).$$
(A.30)
Hence the variational equation for $`A(z)`$ becomes

$$A(z)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}+\frac{1}{ϵ}\gamma _c(ϵD_z)_0^z𝑑y\frac{1}{[s(y)]^{1ϵ}}$$
(A.31)
and in a similar way we can rewrite Eq. (A.10) as

$$s(y)=\frac{1}{1+ϵD_y}\frac{1}{\gamma _c(ϵD_y)}\frac{1}{A(y)}.$$
(A.32)
Inverting Eq. (A.32) and substituting into Eq. (A.31) eliminates the profile function $`A(z)`$:

$$\frac{1}{\left(1+ϵD_y\right)\gamma _c(ϵD_y)s(y)}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}+\frac{1}{ϵ}\gamma _c(ϵD_y)_0^y𝑑x\frac{1}{[s(x)]^{1ϵ}}.$$
(A.33)
Finally, one can eliminate the integral by operating with $`D_y`$ on both sides of this equation, so that

$$D_y\frac{1}{(1+ϵD_y)\gamma _c(ϵD_y)s(y)}=\frac{1}{ϵ}\gamma _c(ϵD_y)\frac{y}{[s(y)]^{1ϵ}}.$$
(A.34)
This equation may be solved systematically by defining $`s(y)`$ in terms of the function $`\omega (y,ϵ)`$ \[ see Eq. (A.17) \] and by making the Ansatz that $`\omega (y,ϵ)`$ has a power expansion in $`ϵ`$

$$\omega (y,ϵ)=\omega _0(y)+ϵ\omega _1(y)+\mathrm{}.$$
(A.35)
The crucial observation is that repeated application of the dilatation operator on an exponential of the form of Eq. (A.17) results in $`\left(ϵD_y\right)^n\mathrm{exp}\left(\omega /ϵ\right)=\left[(y\omega ^{})^n+𝒪(ϵ)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left(\omega /ϵ\right)`$ so that at leading order in $`ϵ`$, for any function $`F(ϵD_y)`$ acting on $`\mathrm{exp}(\pm \omega /ϵ)`$, we have

$$F(ϵD_y)\mathrm{exp}(\pm \omega /ϵ)\stackrel{ϵ0}{}F(\pm y\omega _0^{})\mathrm{exp}(\pm \omega /ϵ).$$
(A.36)
Applying this relation to Eq. (A.34) provides the following equation for $`\omega _0(y)`$

$$\frac{\omega _0^{}}{(1y\omega _0^{})\gamma _c(y\omega _0^{})}=\gamma _c(y\omega _0^{})e^{\omega _0}.$$
(A.37)
which is $`ϵ`$-independent, justifying the Ansatz (A.35) a postiori. This equation may be simplified considerably by making use of the reflection formula $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(z)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1z)=\pi /\mathrm{sin}\pi z`$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-functions. By defining $`v(y)y\omega _0^{}(y)`$, we then find

$$\frac{e^{\omega _0(y)}}{y}=\frac{\pi }{2}[1v(y)]\mathrm{cot}\left[\frac{\pi }{2}v(y)\right],$$
(A.38)
which is Eq. (27) in the main text. Together with the boundary condition $`\omega _0(0)=0`$ \[ i.e. $`\mu ^2(\sigma )\sigma `$ for $`\sigma 0`$, as discussed in the footnote below Eq. (14) \] the first-order nonlinear differential equation (A.38) determines the function $`\omega _0(y)`$. Remarkably, as shown in the main text, it is not actually necessary to solve it in order to obtain the anomalous mass dimension $`\gamma _m`$. It is also interesting to note that due to the reflection formula all $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-functions have disappeared, which has the consequence that in a perturbative expansion of $`\gamma _m^{\mathrm{var}}`$ no Riemann $`\zeta `$-functions, but only powers of $`\pi `$, occur.


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# Some Remarks on the Bel–Robinson Tensor*footnote **footnote *This paper is an amended version of an Essay which received a ”honorable mention” in the 1999 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.

## I Introduction

In analogy to the symmetric energy–momentum tensor of the electromagnetic field, the Bel–Robinson superenergy tensor is defined as follows (see eg. )

$`T^{iklm}`$ $`=`$ $`R^{iabl}R_{ab}^{k}{}_{}{}^{m}+R^{iabl}R_{ab}^{k}{}_{}{}^{m}`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`R^{iabl}R_{ab}^{k}{}_{}{}^{m}+R^{iabm}R_{ab}^{k}{}_{}{}^{l}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{ik}R^{abcl}R_{abc}^m,`$ (2)
where $`R_{iabl}`$ is the Riemann tensor and $``$ indicates the usual dual operation

$$R_{iabl}:=\frac{1}{2}\eta _{iadc}R_{bl}^{dc}.$$
(3)
The unusual properties (see eg. ) of the Bel–Robinson tensor intrigued physicists and a large number of papers were devoted to the understanding of its physical sense within the framework of the General Relativity (GR). Recently, in the Ref.  (see also ) the authors try to connect this tensor with square of the energy–momentum and derive from it (by taking a suitable defined "square root") an energy–momentum tensor of the gravitational field. In some special cases such square root really exists. However, it seems that this is an incorrect physical idea.

In order to understand the physical content of the Bel–Robinson tensor correctly in GR one should take into account the following, fundamental facts:

1. The Bel–Robinson tensor can be obtained as a consequence of the Bianchi identities independently of the Einstein equations.
2. In the framework of the standard General Relativity (GR) The standard General Relativity has a very good experimental confirmation; especially its main postulate — Einstein Equivalence Principle (see eg. ).the gravitational field has non–tensorial strenghts $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{kl}^i`$ and has no (and cannot have any) energy–momentum tensor but only the so–called pseudotensors. It is a consequence of the Einstein Equivalence Principle (EEP).
3. The Bel–Robinson tensor appears explicitly in the expansion of the differences of the gravitational energy–momentum calculated in normal coordinates NC(P) by use of the canonical energy–momentum pseudotensor $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}`$. Namely, it is a part of the differences §§§The analogous expansions were obtained by using other energy–momentum pseudotensors of the gravitational field and also contain Bel–Robinson tensor. However, they are much more complicated; see e.g. . $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(y)_Et_i^k(P)`$. Here $`y`$ means normal coordinates NC(P) which have point P as origin.

In this paper, in Sec. II and in Sec. III, we will consider the above three facts more intensively and show that they uniquely indicate the link between Bel–Robinson tensor and differences of the canonical gravitational energy–momentum calculated in NC(P).
In Sec. IV we give conclusions and some remarks.

## II The Bel–Robinson tensor and Bianchi identities

The Bel–Robinson tensor is a special case of the so–called Maxwellian tensors. The Maxwellian tensors generalize the symmetric energy–momentum tensor of the electromagnetic field onto antisymmetric tensor fields. The general method of construction of such tensors was developed in . In the following we apply this method to the Riemann tensor.

Let us consider Bianchi identities for the Riemann tensor $`R_{iklm}=R_{lmik}=R_{kilm}=R_{ikml}`$

$$_{[a}R_{bc]de}_aR_{bcde}+_bR_{cade}+_cR_{abde}0$$
(4)
and their non–vanishing contractions

$$_aR_{cd}^{ab}2_{[c}R_{d]}^b.$$
(5)
We realize that the identities (3)–(4) possess Maxwellian structure in the indices $`(a,b,c)`$.

Let us multiply (3) by $`R_f^{bcd}`$. Then, after simple calculations we get the new identities

$$R_f^{bcd}_bR_{acde}\frac{1}{2}R_f^{bcd}_aR_{bcde}0.$$
(6)
Then let us transpose the indices $`f`$ and $`e`$ in (5)

$$R_e^{bcd}_bR_{acdf}\frac{1}{2}R_e^{bcd}_aR_{bcdf}0.$$
(7)
The sum of (5) and (6) gives

$`R_f^{bcd}_bR_{acde}`$ $`+`$ $`R_e^{bcd}_bR_{acdf}`$ (8)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(R_f^{bcd}_aR_{bcde}+R_e^{bcd}_aR_{bcdf}\right)0.`$ (9)
Due to the identities (4) one can rewrite the identities (7) in the following form

$`_b(R_f^{bcd}R_{acde}`$ $`+`$ $`R_e^{bcd}R_{acdf}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _a^bR_e^{bcd}R_{bcdf})`$ (10)
$``$ $`2R_{ac}^{d}{}_{e}{}^{}_{[d}R_{f]}^c+2R_{ac}^{d}{}_{f}{}^{}_{[d}R_{e]}^c.`$ (11)
The Bel–Robinson tensor $`T_{aef}^b`$ is easily indicated inside parenthesis on the left hand side of the identities (8) which determine the divergence of this tensor.

Thus, we see that the Bel–Robinson tensor and its divergence arise as a consequence of the Bianchi identities (3) and their contractions (4) only and they are neither connected with Einstein equations nor with the canonical formalism of the energy–momentum in GR.

However, by using of the Einstein equations

$$R_k^i=\beta (T_k^i\frac{1}{2}\delta _k^iT)=:\beta E_k^i,$$
(12)
where $`\beta =8\pi G/c^4`$, one can rewrite the identities (8) in the form

$$_bT_{aef}^b=2\beta R_{ac}^{d}{}_{e}{}^{}_{[d}E_{f]}^c+2\beta R_{ac}^{d}{}_{f}{}^{}_{[d}E_{e]}^c.$$
(13)
The equations (10) give the link between the divergence of the Bel–Robinson tensor and GR.

It follows from (10) that, in vacuum,

$$_bT_{aef}^b=0.$$
(14)
The dimensions of the components of the Bel–Robinson tensor are $`(length)^{()4}`$; but it is a trivial fact that $`1/\beta ^2T_{afe}^b`$ have dimensions of the energy–momentum square. This trivial fact was used in Ref. 3 with the aim of connecting the Bel–Robinson tensor with square of an energy–momentum tensor.

## III The relation between the Bel–Robinson tensor and the canonical energy–momentum in General Relativity

The problem of the energy–momentum in General Relativity (GR) was intensively studied by many authors (see e.g. \[10—17\]). The main results of these investigations are the following: We do not consider here the so–called quasilocal quantities \[18—22\] because already for the Kerr spacetime differently defined quasilocal quantities give different results (see eg. ). Moreover, the term ”quasilocal” is very obscure. We omit also Lorentz hypothesis (see eg. ) which is unsatisfactory from the physical point of view since it gives for gravitational field an energy–momentum tensor which vanishes in vacuum. But we think that Lorentz hypothesis is the best of the all trials to attribute an energy–momentum tensor to gravitational field.

1. Owing to the non–tensorial character of the gravitational strengths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{kl}^i=\{_{kl}^i\}`$ the gravitational field in standard GR has no (and cannot have) any energy–momentum tensor. Any attempt to introduce such a tensor leads us beyound standard GR. Moreover, it is speculative and contradicts EEP.

From that it follows the non–localizability of the gravitational energy–momentum.
2. The best solution of the energy–momentum problem in standard GR seems to be given by the so–called canonical energy–momentum pseudotensor $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}`$ proposed for gravitational field by Einstein and related to that pseudotensor, the canonical, double index, energy–momentum complex

$${}_{E}{}^{}K_{i}^{k}:=\sqrt{|g|}\left(T_i^k+_Et_i^k\right),$$
(15)
for matter and gravitation which satisfies

$$\sqrt{|g|}\left(T_i^k+_Et_i^k\right)=_FU_{i}^{kl}{}_{,l}{}^{}.$$
(16)
Here

$${}_{F}{}^{}U_{i}^{kl}=()_FU_i^{lk}=\alpha \frac{g_{ia}}{\sqrt{|g|}}\left[(g)\left(g^{ka}g^{lb}g^{la}g^{kb}\right)\right]_{,b}$$
(17)
are von Freud superpotentials, $`T_i^k`$ are the components of a symmetric energy–momentum tensor of matter (the sources in the Einstein equations) and $`g`$ is the determinant of the metric tensor; $`,i`$ or $`_i`$ denotes partial derivative. $`\alpha =1/2\beta =c^4/16\pi G`$.

We have \[25—27\]

$`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha \{\delta _i^kg^{ms}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{mr}^l\mathrm{\Gamma }_{sl}^r\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ms}^r\mathrm{\Gamma }_{rl}^l)`$ (18)
$`+`$ $`g_{,i}^{ms}[\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ms}^k{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{tp}^kg^{tp}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{tl}^lg^{kt})g_{ms}`$ (19)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\delta _s^k\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ml}^l+\delta _m^k\mathrm{\Gamma }_{sl}^l)]\}.`$ (20)
The equations (13) can be obtained by rearranging of the Einstein equations having $`T_i^k`$ as sources.

From (13) there follow the local or differential conservation laws

$$\left[\sqrt{|g|}\left(T_i^k+_Et_i^k\right)\right]_{,k}=0,$$
(21)
and, by using Stokes integral theorem, the integral conservation laws

$$\underset{\mathrm{\Omega }}{}\sqrt{|g|}\left(T_i^k+_Et_i^k\right)𝑑\sigma _k=0.$$
(22)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the boundary of a four–dimensional, compact domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and $`d\sigma _k`$ is the three–dimensional integration element (see e.g. ).

The components $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}`$ of the Einstein canonical energy–momentum pseudotensor of the gravitational field neither form a tensor nor other geometric object.

Any attempt of the physical interpretation of the Bel–Robinson tensor in the framework of GR should take into account the connection of the Bel–Robinson tensor and its divergence with Bianchi identities, the above two fundamental facts and the next, more important fact as follows: the Bel–Robinson tensor appears explicitly in the expansion of the differences

$${}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(y)_Et_i^k(P)$$
(23)
of the canonical energy–momentum calculated in normal coordinates \[28—30\] NC(P)(And in analogic expansions obtained when using other pseudotensors too ).Because $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(P)={}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}{}_{,l}{}^{}(P)=0,`$ one can also speak about expansion of $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}`$ alone. But the differences $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(y)_Et_i^k(P)`$ have deeper physical meaning; for example, they admit introduction of superenergy and supermomentum tensors \[31—37\]. This fact gives the most important connection between the Bel–Robinson tensor and GR as follows.

In the NC(P) $`\{y^i\}`$ having the point P as their origin we have

$`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(y)_Et_i^k(P)`$ $`=`$ $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(y)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}{}_{,lm}{}^{}(P)y^ly^m+R_3`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{9}}[T_{ilm}^k(P)+P_{ilm}^k(P){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _i^kR_l^{abc}(P)(R_{abcm}(P)+R_{acbm}(P))`$ (25)
$`+`$ $`2\delta _i^kR_{(l|g}(P)R_{|m)}^g(P)3R_{i(l|}(P)R_{|m)}^k(P)+R_{gi(l|}^k(P)R_{|m)}^g(P)`$ (26)
$`+`$ $`R_{ig(l|}^k(P)R_{|m)}^g(P)]y^ly^m+R_3.`$ (27)
In the formula (19) $`R_3`$ is the remainder of the third order, while

$$T_{ilm}^k:=R_l^{kab}R_{iabm}+R_m^{kab}R_{iabl}\frac{1}{2}\delta _i^kR_l^{abc}R_{abcm}$$
(28)
are the Bel–Robinson tensor components, and

$$P_{ilm}^k:=R_l^{kab}R_{ibam}+R_m^{kab}R_{ibal}\frac{1}{2}\delta _i^kR_l^{abc}R_{acbm}$$
(29)
are components of the tensor which is closely related to the Bel–Robinson tensor.

By using the Einstein equations in the form (9), one can rewrite (19) to the form

$`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(y)_Et_i^k(P)`$ $`=`$ $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(y)={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{9}}[T_{ilm}^k(P)+P_{ilm}^k(P)`$ (30)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _i^kR_l^{abc}(P)\left(R_{abcm}(P)+R_{acbm}(P)\right)`$ (31)
$`+`$ $`2\delta _i^k\beta ^2E_{(l|g}(P)E_{|m)}^g(P)3\beta ^2E_{i(l|}(P)E_{|m)}^k(P)+\beta R_{gi(l|}^k(P)E_{|m)}^g(P)`$ (32)
$`+`$ $`\beta R_{ig(l|}^k(P)E_{|m)}^g(P)]y^ly^m+R_3.`$ (33)
In vacuum we have from (22)

$`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(y)`$ $``$ $`{}_{E}{}^{}t_{i}^{k}(P)=_Et_i^k(y)={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{9}}[T_{ilm}^k(P)+P_{ilm}^k(P)`$ (34)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _i^kR_l^{abc}(P)(R_{abcm}(P)+R_{acbm}(P))]y^ly^m+R_3`$ (35)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha }{9}}\left[R_{(l|}^{k(ab)}(P)R_{iab|m)}(P){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _i^kR_l^{a(bc)}(P)R_{abcm}(P)\right]y^ly^m+R_3.`$ (36)
We see from the above formulas (19)–(23) that the Bel–Robinson tensor really appears in the expansion of the differences (18).

Years ago, by using the expansion (23), we have shoved  that the infinitesimal differences $`\mathrm{}P_a`$ of the free gravitational energy–momentum calculated in NC(P) are proportional to the components $`T_{a00}^0`$ of the Bel–Robinson tensor multiplied by $`\alpha =c^4/16\pi G`$.

## IV Conclusion

The Bel–Robinson tensor follows from the Bianchi identities as the Maxwellian tensor for the Riemann tensor $`R_{iklm}`$ and, within the framework of the standard GR, it can be connected with the differences of the canonical gravitational energy–momentum calculated in NC(P). It is easily seen from Sec. II, from the formulas (19)–(23) and from the Ref. 38. These facts give the most natural (and correct) physical interpretation of this tensor in the framework of the GR.

Although the gravitational field $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{kl}^i`$ has no energy–momentum tensor in standard GR, one can easily introduce there the so–called canonical superenergy tensor \[31—37\] for this field. The method of construction of the canonical superenergy tensor for gravitational field uses the expansion (19) and some kind of averaging. The Bel–Robinson tensor multiplied by $`\alpha =c^4/16\pi G`$ is the main, "Maxwellian part" of such a tensor.

The canonical superenergy tensor for gravitational field does not vanish in vacuum; so, it gives us, for example, a very useful tool for local analysis of the gravitational radiation .

The idea of superenergy and its tensor is universal  and easy to generalize onto matter field too; for example, one can easily introduce the canonical superenergy tensor for matter \[31—35\].

On the "superenergy level" one can easily introduce the canonical angular supermomentum tensors for matter and gravitation  as well.

The canonical superenergy tensors of gravitation and matter and the canonical angular supermomentum tensors of gravitation and matter have much better geometrical and physical properties than the canonical objects from which they were obtained. Also, the integral superenergetic quantities have better properties than corresponding integral energetic quantities; especially, the superenergetic integrals have better convergence in asymptotically flat spacetimes (at spatial or null infinity).

Finally, the canonical superenergy and angular supermomentum tensors give a very good tool for local (and also to global) analysis of the gravitational and matter fields within the framework of the standard GR.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr M.P. Da̧browski for his help in preparation English version of this paper.


text:
# Landau Theory of the Finite Temperature Mott Transition

\[

## Abstract

In the context of the dynamical mean-field theory of the Hubbard model, we identify microscopically an order parameter for the finite temperature Mott endpoint. We derive a Landau functional of the order parameter. We then use the order parameter theory to elucidate the singular behavior of various physical quantities which are experimentally accessible.

\]

When the strength of the electron-electron interaction $`U`$ is increased compared to the bare bandwidth $`2D`$, a metal-insulator transition (MIT) occurs . This phenomenon, known as the Mott transition, can take place in the absence of magnetic long-range order, and is still an outstanding problem in condensed-matter physics. From a theoretical point of view, a difficulty is the absence of an obvious order parameter to systematize the critical behavior of the observable quantities when the metal insulator transition is not accompanied by the onset of magnetic long range order. These issues are experimentally relevant to systems such as V2O3 and Ni(Se,S)2 and are the subject of intensive experimental study.

In recent years, great progress has been made by using the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) . This framework describes both paramagnetic metallic and paramagnetic insulating phases. The $`U`$-$`T`$ phase diagram ($`T`$ is the temperature) of the frustrated Hubbard model in the limit of large lattice coordination is qualitatively similar to that of the V2O3 and Ni(Se,S)2 systems: A first-order phase-transition line ends in a second-order critical point, henceforth referred to as the Mott critical point, which is the main focus of this letter. We will use this framework to address the fundamental questions raised in the previous paragraph.

There are two earlier qualitative ideas as to what should be the order parameter to describe the physics around the finite temperature Mott point. One idea is to connect the order parameter to the notions of ”metallicity” or coherence. It can be traced back to the early paper of Brinkman and Rice  and is captured in a slave boson formalism where the metallic state has a non zero expectation value of a Bose field which describes the coherent propagation of one particle excitations.  In a very different picture, Castellani et al. viewed the metal as a liquid rich in doubly occupied sites, and the insulator as a liquid with few doubly occupied sites. The metal to insulator transition is viewed as a condensation of doubly occupied sites, and the order parameter is related to the Blume-Emery-Griffith model . The Landau approach presented here provides a synthesis of these ideas. It bridges naturally between a picture based on one particle excitations and a picture based on local collective excitations (or double occupancies). In agreement with Castellani et al. we find that the Mott transition has indeed an Ising-like character. On the other hand, we obtain a complementary description in terms of the one particle spectral function reminiscent of the slave boson picture. A simple and clear description of the critical behavior near the critical point emerges. It allows us to systematically derive the critical behavior of any observable quantity and to relate its non analytic dependence on $`T`$ and $`U`$ to that of the order parameter. Our results should be also of help in resolving some controversies on the solution of the Hubbard model in infinite dimensions  by providing a theoretical framework in which to analyze numerical results on the finite temperature Mott transition. It can also be used to analyze results of photoemission and optical conductivity experiments.

For simplicity, we focus on the single-band Hubbard model at half-filling,

$$\widehat{H}=\frac{t}{\sqrt{z}}\underset{ij\sigma }{}c_{i\sigma }^+c_{j\sigma }+U\underset{i}{}\widehat{n}_i\widehat{n}_i.$$
(1)
The first term describes the hopping between nearest neighbors on a lattice with coordination number $`z`$. The corresponding half bandwidth is our unit of energy, $`D=2t=1`$. The second term is an on-site interaction suppressing double occupancies by imposing an energy cost $`U`$ on each one. In the limit of infinite dimensions, $`z\mathrm{}`$, this model can be mapped onto a single-impurity Anderson model (SIAM) supplemented by a self-consistency condition. We adopt a semicircular density of states, which is realized on the Bethe lattice. The dynamical mean-field equations can be obtained by differentiating the Landau functional

$$F_{\text{LG}}[\mathrm{\Delta }]=T\underset{n}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)^2}{t^2}+F_{\text{imp}}[\mathrm{\Delta }],$$
(2)
with respect to the hybridization function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)`$ of the SIAM, which has the meaning of a Weiss field. $`i\omega _n`$ are fermionic Matsubara frequencies, while $`F_{\text{imp}}[\mathrm{\Delta }]`$ is the free energy of the SIAM, given by the action $`S_{\text{imp}}=S_{\text{loc}}[\mathrm{\Delta }=0]+_{\sigma ,n}f_\sigma ^+(i\omega _n)\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)f_\sigma (i\omega _n)`$. Here, $`S_{\text{loc}}[\mathrm{\Delta }=0]`$ is the action of the local $`f`$ level with the hybridization set to zero. The first term in Eq. (2) is the cost of forming the Weiss field $`\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)`$ around a given site, while the second one is the free energy of an electron at this site in the presence of the Weiss field. Using the Green’s function of the SIAM, $`G(i\omega _n)=(1/2T)\delta F_{\text{imp}}/\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)`$, the mean-field equation reads

$$\frac{t^2}{2T}\frac{\delta F_{\text{LG}}[\mathrm{\Delta }]}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)}=t^2G(i\omega _n)[\mathrm{\Delta },\alpha ]\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)=0.$$
(3)
Here, $`\alpha =(U,T)`$ comprises the control parameters. This Landau approach was used to describe the energetics of the Mott transition at zero temperature . We will show that near the finite temperature Mott point, the Weiss field has a singular dependence which can be parametrized by a single number which assumes the role of an effective order parameter for this transition.

As in Landau theory, we assume that a finite temperature transition exists, and derive a complete description of the critical behavior near the transition as follows: First, we expand the mean-field equation (3) around the critical point, $`\alpha _c=(U_c,T_c)`$, up to third order in the deviation of the hybridization function from its value at the critical point, $`\delta \mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }(\alpha _c+\delta \alpha )\mathrm{\Delta }(\alpha _c)`$, and to first order in $`\delta \alpha =(UU_c,TT_c)`$. This expansion is well-behaved because the impurity model at finite temperatures depends smoothly on $`\alpha `$ and $`\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)`$. In order to carry out this expansion it is convenient to define a fluctuation matrix

$$M_{nm}=\frac{t^2}{2T}\frac{\delta ^2F_{\text{LG}}[\mathrm{\Delta }]}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _m)}|_{\text{critical point}}$$
(4)
$`M_{nm}`$ has the form $`\delta _{nm}+K_{nm}`$, where $`K_{nm}`$ is the Fourier transform of a kernel $`K(\tau ,\tau ^{})`$ which is proportional to the connected correlation function of an operator $`O(\tau )=_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\beta }𝑑uf^+(u+\tau )f(u)`$, $`<O(\tau )O(\tau ^{})><O(\tau )><O(\tau ^{})>`$ where the average $`<>`$ is calculated with the action of an Anderson impurity model. It is well known that the correlation functions of the Anderson impurity model are bounded, and therefore the Kernel $`K`$ is square integrable $`_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\beta }_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\beta }𝑑\tau 𝑑\tau ^{}|K(\tau ,\tau ^{})|^2<\mathrm{}`$. Therefore it $`K_{nm}`$ is a Fredholm operator which and has a discrete spectrum of eigenvalues which we labeled by the index $`l`$.

At half-filling, particle-hole symmetry guarantees that the order parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega )`$ is odd and wholly imaginary. Accordingly, the fluctuation matrix is real and symmetric and has real eigenvalues $`m_l`$ belonging to eigenvectors $`\varphi _l(i\omega _n)`$ which can be chosen to be purely imaginary and to form an orthonormal basis. The critical point, in this description of the problem, is signaled by the appearance of a single zero eigenvalue, $`m_0=0`$, which indicates the occurrence of a simple bifurcation.

Next, we represent $`\delta \mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the eigenbasis of the matrix (4), $`\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)=_l\eta _l\varphi _l(i\omega _n)`$, where all $`\eta _l`$ are real. By projecting the mean-field equation (3) onto the eigenbasis $`\varphi _l`$, we obtain an equation of the form

$`m_l\eta _l+F_l^{(0)}[\{\eta _{j0}\}]+F_l^{(1)}[\{\eta _{j0}\}]\eta _0`$ (5)
$`+F_l^{(2)}[\{\eta _{j0}\}]\eta _0^2+F_l^{(3)}\eta _0^3=0`$ , (6)
which holds for all $`l`$. $`F_l^{(0)}`$ is of order $`\delta \alpha `$. $`F_l^{(1)}`$ and $`F_l^{(2)}`$ have Taylor expansions in the $`\eta _{j0}`$, where $`F_l^{(1)}`$ starts with the linear order. We solve Eq. (6) iteratively for all $`\eta _{l0}`$ to obtain $`\eta _{l0}=a_l+c_l\eta _0^2+d_l\eta _0^3`$. Here, $`a_l`$ is of first order in $`\delta \alpha `$, (which assures us that the leading singular dependence of the spectral function is proportional to $`\varphi _0`$) further corrections have the form $`b_l\eta _0`$ with $`b_l`$ also of order $`\delta \alpha `$. By inserting this expression into the $`l=0`$ case of Eq. (6), we derive an effective equation for the zero-mode amplitude $`\eta _0`$. We can think of $`\eta _0`$ as the soft mode near the transition and the $`\eta _{l0}`$ as massive modes. The elimination of the massive modes renormalizes the coefficients of the effective action for the soft mode. In the resulting cubic equation for $`\eta _0`$, we eliminate the quadratic term by shifting $`\eta _0`$ by an appropriately chosen linear function in $`\delta \alpha `$, $`\eta =\eta _0+\text{const}_1\times (TT_c)+\text{const}_2\times (UU_c)`$. Close to the critical point, $`\eta `$ and $`\eta _0`$ are dominated by non analytic terms and are therefore essentially equal. We thus obtain an equation of state without quadratic term in $`\eta `$:

$$p\eta +c\eta ^3=h.$$
(7)
Here, all quantities are real.

As in Landau theory, a microscopic calculation of the Landau coefficients (p,c,h) is difficult. However we can extract exact information about the critical behavior from the knowledge that they are smooth functions of the control parameters, i.e. $`c`$ is finite at the critical point, whereas $`p`$ and $`h`$ are linear functions of $`\delta \alpha `$, $`h=h_1(UU_c)+h_2(TT_c)`$ and $`p=p_1(UU_c)+p_2(TT_c)`$. As a consequence, $`\eta `$ has a singular dependence on $`U`$ and $`T`$ near the critical point. At $`U=U_c`$, and for $`T`$ near $`T_c`$,

$$\eta (U_c,T)\text{sign}(h_2/c)\text{sign}(TT_c)|TT_c|^{1/3}.$$
(8)
The mean-field equation (7) describes the Mott transition close to the critical point in terms of the order parameter $`\eta `$. In this form, the analogy with the liquid gas transition is evident. The Mott transition takes place on the line in the $`U`$-$`T`$ plane where $`h`$ vanishes and the system has full Ising symmetry. The critical point, $`(U_c,T_c)`$, divides this line into two half-lines. On the half-line where $`T<T_c`$, there are two solutions, $`\eta =\pm \sqrt{|p/c|}`$. We will see later that $`\eta `$ parametrizes the strength of the quasiparticle resonance of the single-particle spectrum (see Fig. 2). A positive or negative ”field” $`h`$ increases or decreases this component of the spectral function, respectively. The field $`h`$ decreases when $`U`$ or $`T`$ is increased, because either increase eliminates the metallic coherence and thus reduces the value of $`\eta `$. We have used the sign convention whereby is positive.

We now turn to various consequences of our construction. From Eq. (7), we can obtain the shape of the coexistence region near the critical point, where two solutions of the mean field equations coexist. It is centered symmetrically about the $`h=0`$ line, and its width along $`T=\text{const}`$ lines, $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$, scales with $`(T_cT)^{3/2}`$. The constant of proportionality is given by $`(4/\sqrt{c}|h_1|)[(p_2p_1h_2/h_1)/3]^{3/2}`$.

An important quantity which is measured in numerical simulations is the double occupancy. It is connected to our order parameter $`\eta `$ as follows: $`d=(T/U)_n\{[(i\omega _n+\mu )G(i\omega _n)1]e^{i\omega _n0^+}t^2G(i\omega _n)^2\}=d_c+c_1^{(d)}\eta +c_2^{(d)}\eta ^2`$. In this expansion about the critical point, we have only retained the leading and next to leading nonanalytic terms responsible for the critical behavior. The susceptibility $`\chi =d/U`$ diverges at the critical point. For example:

$$\chi (U,T_c)(c_1^{(d)}/3)\text{sign}(h_1/c)|h_1/c|^{1/3}|UU_c|^{2/3}.$$
(9)
The double occupancy is related to the magnetization by the identity $`(n_{}n_{})^2=12d`$. The magnetic response will therefore also exhibit nonanalytic dependences on the control parameters.

There has been several numerical studies of the finite temperature Mott transition in this model. The Landau approach predicts the functional dependence of various quantities near the transition, and therefore the expressions derived in this paper, are useful for interpreting the numerical work. To illustrate how our approach sheds new light on previously obtained numerical data we compare in Fig. 1 the results for the double occupancy $`d`$ obtained within the IPT and QMC calculations with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau =0.5/D`$, after carrying out the shifts and the rescaling described in the figure caption. Within the statistical errors of the QMC calculation, the agreement is excellent. This surprising result is consistent with the Landau theory: different approximations for the solution of the impurity model reduce to the same Landau theory near the critical point, but with different values of the Landau coefficients. Therefore, with a suitable rescaling, the results near the critical point should agree with each other, and with a fit based on the Landau theory which is shown in the red line in figure 1.

Small changes in the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$ result in shifts of $`U_c`$, $`T_c`$, and $`d`$ at criticality, but does not change the form of the critical behavior. We also note that the critical slowing down which has been observed in the iterative solutions of the mean field equations are a direct consequence of the presence of the soft mode $`\eta `$ described in the Landau approach.

From our construction it is clear that $`\eta `$ provides the leading non analytic behavior of the Weiss field. In order to get a better feeling for its physical significance we have to understand how it can be probed experimentally. Since the order parameter is closely related to the amplitude of the quasiparticle peak, photoemission is an ideal tool to probe the temperature and pressure dependence of the order parameter near the critical point. This experimental technique, in the angle integrated mode, would also measure the convolution of the Fermi function with the analytically continued eigenfunction of the zero mode, $`\text{Im}\varphi _0(i\omega _n=\omega i\delta )`$. To visualize the shape of the spectral function near the critical point we must resort to calculations based on analytic methods such as IPT.

The inset of Fig. 2 shows the spectral function very near the critical point, computed within the IPT.

It illustrates how the compromise between metallic and insulating features is realized. A finite $`\eta `$, depending on its sign, adds or subtracts spectral weight to the coherent low energy feature immersed in a constant backround in between the Hubbard bands. The zero mode is seen to affect mainly the low-energy part of the spectrum, which determines whether the system is metallic or insulating. The strong temperature dependence has been noticed in previous theoretical and experimental studies.  Its origin and connection to an order-parameter description of the Mott transition, however, had not been recognized until now. In the main panel of Fig. 2 we display the height of the quasiparticle peak $`A_0=i\mathrm{\Delta }(i0^+)/\pi t^2`$, for $`UU_c`$, as a function of temperature in the vicinity of $`T_c`$. The rapid variation seen in the figure is consistent with the form $`A_0=A_{0c}+c_1^{(A)}\eta +c_2^{(A)}\eta ^2`$ with coefficients $`c_i^{(A)}`$ independent of U and temperature.

Optical techniques are probably the best tool available to test the predictions of our theory. For instance, one may consider the integral of the optical conductivity up to some cuttoff, $`N_{\text{eff}}(T)`$. Since the optical conductivity in infinite dimensions is directly expressed in terms of the single-particle Green’s function, $`N_{\text{eff}}(T)`$ must also exhibit the singular temperature dependence near the transition. We would therefore expect the temperature variation of this quantity to be most visible for a relatively small cuttoff, displaying a rapid variation with $`T`$ similarly as for $`A_0`$. Since the singular dependence arises from the order parameter $`\eta `$, it should be possible to fit the Drude weight by $`N_{\text{eff}}(T)=N_{\text{eff}}(T_c)+c_1^{(N)}\eta (T)+c_2^{(N)}\eta ^2(T)`$. $`N_{\text{eff}}(T)`$ has recently been measured in NiS2-xSex , the observed strong temperature dependence of the effective number of carriers is consistent with our predictions.

In summary, we derived an order parameter description of the Mott transition near its critical point in the $`U`$-$`T`$ plane. We showed that the critical behavior in proximity to this point is governed by an Ising-like Landau functional and is present in a large number of observable quantities. We predict that any physical quantity which is sensitive to the single-particle spectrum exhibits singular dependences on the control parameters close to the finite-temperature Mott point. The leading non analytic behavior of other physical quantities can be obtained along similar lines, i.e. by recognizing their coupling to the order parameter. This involves a few coefficients, (i.e. the $`c^{(A)}`$’s) which depend on the observable (and on the approximation method) and, as in Landau theory, should be taken as parameters. The dependence on temperature and on pressure is completely determined from the temperature or pressure dependence of the order parameter that follows from Eq. (7). ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by NSF 95-29138. E.L. was partially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. M.J.R. acknowledges support of Fundación Antorchas, CONICET (PID $`N^o4547/96`$), and ANPCYT (PMT-PICT1855). We thank R. Chitra for discussions and D. Vollhardt for useful comments on the mansucript.