English

The 2PI effective action at four loop order in $\varphi^4$ theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2016-07-20 v1

Abstract

It is well known that perturbative pressure calculations show poor convergence. Calculations using a two particle irreducible (2PI) effective action show improved convergence at the 3 loop level, but no calculations have been done at 4 loops. We consider the 2PI effective theory for a symmetric scalar theory with quartic coupling in 4-dimensions. We calculate the pressure and two different non-perturbative vertices as functions of coupling and temperature. Our results show that the 4 loop contribution can become larger than the 3 loop term when the coupling is large. This indicates a breakdown of the 2PI approach, and the need for higher order nnPI approximations. In addition, our results demonstrate the renormalizability of 2PI calculations at the 4 loop level. This is interesting because the counterterm structure of the 2PI theory at 4 loops is different from the structure at n3n\le 3 loops. Two vertex counterterms are required at the 4 loop level, but not at lower loop order. This unique feature of the 2PI theory has not previously been verified numerically.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1603.02085,
  title  = {The 2PI effective action at four loop order in $\varphi^4$ theory},
  author = {M. E. Carrington and B. A. Meggison and D. Pickering},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.02085},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

15 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:05:17.799Z