Asymptotically Safe QED

Abstract

High-energy completeness of quantum electrodynamics (QED) can be induced by an interacting ultraviolet fixed point of the renormalization flow. We provide evidence for the existence of two of such fixed points in the subspace spanned by the gauge coupling, the electron mass and the Pauli spin-field coupling. Renormalization group trajectories emanating from these fixed points correspond to asymptotically safe theories that are free from the Landau pole problem. We analyze the resulting universality classes defined by the fixed points, determine the corresponding critical exponents, study the resulting phase diagram, and quantify the stability of our results with respect to a systematic expansion scheme. We also compute high-energy complete flows towards the long-range physics. We observe the existence of a renormalization group trajectory that interconnects one of the interacting fixed points with the physical low-energy behavior of QED as measured in experiment. Within pure QED, we estimate the crossover from perturbative QED to the asymptotically safe fixed point regime to occur somewhat above the Planck scale but far below the scale of the Landau pole.

14 pages, 4 figures; v3: minor corrections to Eq. (7), Tab. III and the figures; quantitative changes to Eqs. (19) and (20) correcting previous and published versions

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• Exact evolution equation for the effective potential
• Chiral symmetry breaking in continuum QCD
• Asymptotic safety guaranteed
• Asymptotic safety: a simple example
• Asymptotically Safe Standard Model via Vector-Like Fermions
• Asymptotically free scaling solutions in nonabelian Higgs models
• Analytic Coupling Structure of Large $N_f$ (Super) QED and QCD
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• High-intensity scaling in UV-modified QED
• Pauli-Term-Induced Fixed Points in $d$-dimensional QED
• Renormalization Flow of Nonlinear Electrodynamics
• Quantum-critical electrodynamics of Luttinger fermions
• Massive Dirac-Pauli physics in lead-halide perovskites
• B-Anomalies from flavorful U(1)' extensions, safely
• Functional Renormalization Group Flows and Gauge Consistency in QED
• Renormalisation group flow of the Jaynes-Cummings model
• Conformal Windows beyond Asymptotic Freedom