Renormalization Group Improvement of the Effective Potential: an EFT Approach

Abstract

We apply effective field theory (EFT) methods to compute the renormalization group improved effective potential for theories with a large mass hierarchy. Our method allows one to compute the effective potential in a systematic expansion in powers of the mass ratio, as well as to sum large logarithms of mass ratios using renormalization group evolution. The effective potential is the sum of one-particle irreducible diagrams (1PI) but information about which diagrams are 1PI is lost after matching to the EFT, since heavy lines get shrunk to a point. We therefore introduce a tadpole condition in place of the 1PI condition, and use the renormalization group improved value of the tadpole in computing the effective potential. We explain why the effective potential computed using an EFT is not the same as the effective potential of the EFT. We illustrate our method using the $O(N)$ model, a theory of two scalars in the unbroken and broken phases, and the Higgs-Yukawa model. Our leading-log result, obtained by integrating the one-loop $\beta$-functions, correctly reproduces the log-squared term in explicit two-loop calculations. Our method does not have a Goldstone boson infrared divergence problem.

Added a section explaining why the EFT method does not suffer from the Goldstone boson infrared divergence problem. Typos fixed

References in corpus (5)

• Consistent Use of the Standard Model Effective Potential
• Taming Infrared Divergences in the Effective Potential
• Taming the Goldstone contributions to the effective potential
• Consistent Use of Effective Potentials
• Multi-scale Renormalization Group Methods for Effective Potentials with Multiple Scalar Fields

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