The Quantum Effective Action, Wave Functions and Yang-Mills (2+1)

TL;DR

This paper investigates the connection between quantum effective actions and wave functions in field theories, applying the findings to 2+1 dimensional Yang-Mills theory to derive leading effective action terms from known ground state wave functions.

Contribution

It establishes a method to extract the effective action from wave functions in Yang-Mills theory, providing new insights into their relationship.

Findings

Derived leading terms of the effective action from ground state wave functions.

Connected Hamiltonian formalism results with effective action formulation.

Enhanced understanding of quantum field theory structures in lower dimensions.

Abstract

We explore the relationship between the quantum effective action and the ground state (and excited state) wave functions of a field theory. Applied to the Yang-Mills theory in 2+1 dimensions, we find the leading terms of the effective action from the ground state wave function previously obtained in the Hamiltonian formalism by solving the Schrodinger equation.