No Arabic abstract
A functional renormalization group approach to $d$-dimensional, $N$-component, non-collinear magnets is performed using various truncations of the effective action relevant to study their long distance behavior. With help of these truncations we study the existence of a stable fixed point for dimensions between $d= 2.8$ and $d=4$ for various values of $N$ focusing on the critical value $N_c(d)$ that, for a given dimension $d$, separates a first order region for $N<N_c(d)$ from a second order region for $N>N_c(d)$. Our approach concludes to the absence of stable fixed point in the physical - $N=2,3$ and $d=3$ - cases, in agreement with $epsilon=4-d$-expansion and in contradiction with previous perturbative approaches performed at fixed dimension and with recent approaches based on conformal bootstrap program.
The non-perturbative renormalization-group approach is extended to lattice models, considering as an example a $phi^4$ theory defined on a $d$-dimensional hypercubic lattice. Within a simple approximation for the effective action, we solve the flow equations and obtain the renormalized dispersion $eps(q)$ over the whole Brillouin zone of the reciprocal lattice. In the long-distance limit, where the lattice does not matter any more, we reproduce the usual flow equations of the continuum model. We show how the numerical solution of the flow equations can be simplified by expanding the dispersion in a finite number of circular harmonics.
We develop a theoretical approach to ``spontaneous stochasticity in classical dynamical systems that are nearly singular and weakly perturbed by noise. This phenomenon is associated to a breakdown in uniqueness of solutions for fixed initial data and underlies many fundamental effects of turbulence (unpredictability, anomalous dissipation, enhanced mixing). Based upon analogy with statistical-mechanical critical points at zero temperature, we elaborate a renormalization group (RG) theory that determines the universal statistics obtained for sufficiently long times after the precise initial data are ``forgotten. We apply our RG method to solve exactly the ``minimal model of spontaneous stochasticity given by a 1D singular ODE. Generalizing prior results for the infinite-Reynolds limit of our model, we obtain the RG fixed points that characterize the spontaneous statistics in the near-singular, weak-noise limit, determine the exact domain of attraction of each fixed point, and derive the universal approach to the fixed points as a singular large-deviations scaling, distinct from that obtained by the standard saddle-point approximation to stochastic path-integrals in the zero-noise limit. We present also numerical simulation results that verify our analytical predictions, propose possible experimental realizations of the ``minimal model, and discuss more generally current empirical evidence for ubiquitous spontaneous stochasticity in Nature. Our RG method can be applied to more complex, realistic systems and some future applications are briefly outlined.
We study the quantum sine-Gordon model within a nonperturbative functional renormalization-group approach (FRG). This approach is benchmarked by comparing our findings for the soliton and lightest breather (soliton-antisoliton bound state) masses to exact results. We then examine the validity of the Lukyanov-Zamolodchikov conjecture for the expectation value $langle e^{frac{i}{2}nbetavarphi}rangle$ of the exponential fields in the massive phase ($n$ is integer and $2pi/beta$ denotes the periodicity of the potential in the sine-Gordon model). We find that the minimum of the relative and absolute disagreements between the FRG results and the conjecture is smaller than 0.01.
We propose a modification of the non-perturbative renormalization-group (NPRG) which applies to lattice models. Contrary to the usual NPRG approach where the initial condition of the RG flow is the mean-field solution, the lattice NPRG uses the (local) limit of decoupled sites as the (initial) reference system. In the long-distance limit, it is equivalent to the usual NPRG formulation and therefore yields identical results for the critical properties. We discuss both a lattice field theory defined on a $d$-dimensional hypercubic lattice and classical spin systems. The simplest approximation, the local potential approximation, is sufficient to obtain the critical temperature and the magnetization of the 3D Ising, XY and Heisenberg models to an accuracy of the order of one percent. We show how the local potential approximation can be improved to include a non-zero anomalous dimension $eta$ and discuss the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition of the 2D XY model on a square lattice.
The renormalization group plays an essential role in many areas of physics, both conceptually and as a practical tool to determine the long-distance low-energy properties of many systems on the one hand and on the other hand search for viable ultraviolet completions in fundamental physics. It provides us with a natural framework to study theoretical models where degrees of freedom are correlated over long distances and that may exhibit very distinct behavior on different energy scales. The nonperturbative functional renormalization-group (FRG) approach is a modern implementation of Wilsons RG, which allows one to set up nonperturbative approximation schemes that go beyond the standard perturbative RG approaches. The FRG is based on an exact functional flow equation of a coarse-grained effective action (or Gibbs free energy in the language of statistical mechanics). We review the main approximation schemes that are commonly used to solve this flow equation and discuss applications in equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium statistical physics, quantum many-particle systems, high-energy physics and quantum gravity.