A Renormalized perturbation theory for problems with nontrivial boundary conditions or backgrounds in two space-time dimensions

TL;DR

This paper develops a self-consistent renormalization method for two-dimensional quantum field theories with nontrivial boundary conditions or backgrounds, revealing how these conditions affect mass counterterms and system properties.

Contribution

It introduces an alternative renormalization procedure that accounts for non-perturbative boundary conditions and backgrounds in 2D systems, with explicit calculations in the bb1 model.

Findings

Mass counterterms depend on position and boundary conditions.

Differences in counterterms are localized near boundaries or backgrounds.

Method effectively captures effects of nontrivial conditions on system properties.

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the effects of nontrivial boundary conditions or backgrounds, including non-perturbative ones, on the renormalization program for systems in two dimensions. Here we present an alternative renormalization procedure such that these non-perturbative conditions can be taken into account in a self-contained and, we believe, self-consistent manner. These conditions have profound effects on the properties of the system, in particular all of its $n$-point functions. To be concrete, we investigate these effects in the $\lambda \phi^4$ model in two dimensions and show that the mass counterterms turn out to be proportional to the Green's functions which have nontrivial position dependence in these cases. We then compute the difference between the mass counterterms in the presence and absence of these conditions. We find that in the case of nontrivial boundary conditions this difference is minimum between the boundaries and infinite on them. The minimum approaches zero when the boundaries go to infinity. In the case of nontrivial backgrounds, we consider the kink background and show that the difference is again small and localized around the kink.