Abstract
We use the Gross-Neveu model in as a simple fermionic example for Weinberg’s asymptotic safety scenario: despite being perturbatively nonrenormalizable, the model defines an interacting quantum field theory being valid to arbitrarily high momentum scales owing to the existence of a non-Gaussian fixed point. Using the functional renormalization group, we study the uv behavior of the model in both the purely fermionic as well as a partially bosonized language. We show that asymptotic safety is realized at non-Gaussian fixed points in both formulations, the universal critical exponents of which we determine quantitatively. The partially bosonized formulation allows to make contact to the large- expansion where the model is known to be renormalizable to all orders. In this limit, the fixed-point action as well as all universal critical exponents can be computed analytically. As asymptotic safety has become an important scenario for quantizing gravity, our description of a well-understood model is meant to provide for an easily accessible and controllable example of modern nonperturbative quantum field theory.
2 More- Received 14 December 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.83.085012
© 2011 American Physical Society