Abstract
There is some confusion about what the effective potential is. To remove this confusion, boundary conditions in the path-integral formulation are discussed. For a system with several phases, there are several kinds of physically acceptable boundary conditions. The choice of condition determines the phase. Therefore without specifying the phase we cannot discuss the generating functionals. By taking this fact into account, the meanings of the effective potential and its convex property are clarified. The confusion is removed and the consistent interpretation is obtained.
- Received 4 August 1986
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.35.2009
©1987 American Physical Society