English

Renormalization Group and Effective Potential in Classically Conformal Theories

High Energy Physics - Theory 2010-01-15 v3

Abstract

We derive a general formula for the RG improved effective (Coleman-Weinberg) potential for classically conformal models, applying it to several examples of physical interest, and in particular a model of QCD coupled via quarks to a colorless scalar field. The closed form expressions allow us to discuss the range of validity of the effective potential as well as the issue of `large logarithms' in a way different from previous such analyses. Remarkably, in all examples considered, convexity of the effective potential is restored by the RG improvement, or otherwise the potential becomes unstable. In the former case, symmetry breaking becomes unavoidable due to the appearance of an infrared barrier ΛIR\Lambda_{IR}, which hints at a so far unsuspected link between ΛQCD\Lambda_{QCD} and the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0809.1338,
  title  = {Renormalization Group and Effective Potential in Classically Conformal Theories},
  author = {Krzysztof A. Meissner and Hermann Nicolai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0809.1338},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

17 pages, 2 figures, formulas corrected, references added

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:17:55.627Z