English

Physical model of dimensional regularization

General Physics 2017-06-21 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We explicitly construct fractals of dimension 4-epsilon on which dimensional regularization approximates scalar-field-only quantum-field-theory amplitudes. The construction does not require fractals to be Lorentz-invariant in any sense, and we argue that there probably is no Lorentz-invariant fractal of dimension greater than 2. We derive dimensional regularization's power-law screening first for fractals obtained by removing voids from 3-dimensional Euclidean space. The derivation applies techniques from elementary dielectric theory. Surprisingly, fractal geometry by itself does not guarantee the appropriate power-law behavior; boundary conditions at fractal voids also play an important role. We then extend the derivation to 4-dimensional Minkowski space. We comment on generalization to nonscalar fields, and speculate about implications for quantum gravity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1612.03778,
  title  = {Physical model of dimensional regularization},
  author = {Jonathan F. Schonfeld},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.03778},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

This article has been accepted for publication by European Physical Journal C. Acceptance date November 17, 2016

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