No Arabic abstract
We use the boundary effective theory (BET) approach to thermal field theory in order to calculate the pressure of a system of massless scalar fields with quartic interaction. The method naturally separates the infrared physics, and is essentially non-perturbative. To lowest order, the main ingredient is the solution of the free Euler-Lagrange equation with non-trivial (time) boundary conditions. We derive a resummed pressure, which is in good agreement with recent calculations found in the literature, following a very direct and compact procedure.
Inspired by the corresponding problem in QCD, we determine the pressure of massless O(N) scalar field theory up to order g^6 in the weak-coupling expansion, where g^2 denotes the quartic coupling constant. This necessitates the computation of all 4-loop vacuum graphs at a finite temperature: by making use of methods developed by Arnold and Zhai at 3-loop level, we demonstrate that this task is manageable at least if one restricts to computing the logarithmic terms analytically, while handling the ``constant 4-loop contributions numerically. We also inspect the numerical convergence of the weak-coupling expansion after the inclusion of the new terms. Finally, we point out that while the present computation introduces strategies that should be helpful for the full 4-loop computation on the QCD-side, it also highlights the need to develop novel computational techniques, in order to be able to complete this formidable task in a systematic fashion.
We investigate the viability of extending the Standard Model with $S_1$ and $S_3$ scalar leptoquarks when the flavour structure is parametrized in terms of Froggatt-Nielsen charges. In contrast to a similar analysis with a vector leptoquark, we find essentially two solutions for the charges that fit the experimental constraints, which are dominated by the current tensions in $B$ decays. These two scenarios differ in their estimate of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, $(g-2)$, but they both predict sizeable contributions to $tautomugamma$, $bar B_stotau^pmmu^mp$ and $B^+to K^+tau^+mu^-$ decays, whose branching ratios are close to the current experimental limits.
Effective field theory (EFT) approaches are widely used at the LHC, such that it is important to study their validity, and ease of matching to specific new physics models. In this paper, we consider an extension of the SM in which a top quark couples to a new heavy scalar. We find the dimension six operators generated by this theory at low energy, and match the EFT to the full theory up to NLO precision in the simplified model coupling. We then examine the range of validity of the EFT description in top pair production, finding excellent validity even if the scalar mass is only slightly above LHC energies, provided NLO corrections are included. In the absence of the latter, the LO EFT overestimates kinematic distributions, such that over-optimistic constraints on BSM contributions are obtained. We next examine the constraints on the EFT and full models that are expected to be obtained from both top pair and four top production at the LHC, finding for low scalar masses that both processes show similar exclusion power. However, for larger masses, estimated LHC uncertainties push constraints into the non-perturbative regime, where the full model is difficult to analyse, and thus not perturbatively matchable to the EFT. This highlights the necessity to improve uncertainties of SM hypotheses in top final states.
The transfer matrix in lattice field theory connects the covariant and the initial data frameworks; in spin foam models, it can be written as a composition of elementary cellular amplitudes/propagators. We present a framework for discrete spacetime classical field theory in which solutions to the field equations over elementary spacetime cells may be amalgamated if they satisfy simple gluing conditions matching the composition rules of cellular amplitudes in spin foam models. Furthermore, the formalism is endowed with a multisymplectic structure responsible for local conservation laws. Some models within our framework are effective theories modeling a system at a given scale. Our framework allows us to study coarse graining and the continuum limit.
We show that the one-loop effective action at finite temperature for a scalar field with quartic interaction has the same renormalized expression as at zero temperature if written in terms of a certain classical field $phi_c$, and if we trade free propagators at zero temperature for their finite-temperature counterparts. The result follows if we write the partition function as an integral over field eigenstates (boundary fields) of the density matrix element in the functional Schr{o}dinger field-representation, and perform a semiclassical expansion in two steps: first, we integrate around the saddle-point for fixed boundary fields, which is the classical field $phi_c$, a functional of the boundary fields; then, we perform a saddle-point integration over the boundary fields, whose correlations characterize the thermal properties of the system. This procedure provides a dimensionally-reduced effective theory for the thermal system. We calculate the two-point correlation as an example.