PHYSICAL REVIEW
0
VOLUME 40, NUMBER 8 15OCTOBER 1989Gaussian approximation
of
the Gross-Neveu
model
in
the functional
Schrodinger
picture
S.
K.
Kim andJ.
YangDepartment
of
Physics, Ehwa Women's University, Seoul 120-750, KoreaK.
S.
SohDepartment
of
Physics Education, Seoul National University, Seoul 151742, K-oreaJ.
H.
YeeDepartment ofPhysics, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea (Received 9November 1988;revised manuscript received 2June 1989)
The Gross-Neveu model is analyzed by the Gaussian approximation in the functional Schrodinger picture. It is shown that in the large-N limit the Gaussian approximation exactly reproduces the Gross-Neveu results, but for finite Nit contains more information than the large-N approximation. There are two nontrivial phases of the theory depending upon the sign of the
infinitesimal bare coupling constant. Dynamical symmetry breaking occurs in one ofthe phases. We also apply our analysis tothe chiral Gross-Neveu model.
I.
INTRODUCTION@(x)
=
1—
u(x)+
52 5u
t(x)
iP (x)
=
u(x)+
2 5u
x
to satisfy the equal-time anticom mutation relation
Ig;(x,
t),
QJ(x',t)I
=5;.
5(x
—
x'),
where u andut
are an-ticommuting Grassmann variables. The time-indepen-dent functional Schrodinger equation is then given byH
u+,
u+
5~e) =E~%')
5u ' gg~
(1.
2)and we can take the trial wave functional, for the varia-tional approximation, in the Gaussian form
~%)
—
+~G)=,
expI
ut(x)G(x,
y)u(y)
(detG
)'
(1.
3a) and its dualIt
is believed that the Schrodinger-picture Gaussian variational method is quite promising for the studyof
quantum structures
of
field theories. ' This method can be easily applied for boson field theories. In the caseof
fermion field theories, on the other hand, it isnot easy to take the wave functional in Gaussian form.
Recently, Floreanim and Jackiw proposed that the fermion field operator
f
and its conjugate momentum ig
be realized as(4/~(G/=
expI
u(x)G(x,
y)u(y)
(detG)'"
(1.
3b) whereG=(G
)The purpose
of
this paper is to use the realization(1.
1)to establish the Gaussian variational method for fermion
theories. We believe that the Cxross-Neveu (GN) model is most suitable for this purpose since the model is solv-able in the large-X limit. We note that a variational analysis
of
the GN model already has been carried out byLatorre and
Soto.
Our work is different from theirs in two features. Their wave functional is adelta functional, while ours is a Gaussian one. They introduced constantbackground spinor fields and expressed the effective
po-tential (V,s.) in terms
of
a mass parameter which is con-structed from constant spinor fields. Following Grossand Neveu who used the vacuum expectation value
of
the compositive operator(gpss):—
—
o for V,s,
we.expressedVffwith an effective scalar field u which is analogous to
the 0. variable so that our results can be compared with the GN model. Despite the differences in the choice
of
the trial wave functionals and the variational parameters the results turn out to be equivalent. Still another work by Lou and Ni, who take acoherent-state wave function-al, give similar results. The equivalenceof
the results suggest that the Gaussian variational approximationsof
fermion fields share the same essential core albeit ap-parently different formulations.
As Latorre and Soto pointed out there is a strong parallel between A,P in four-dimensional spacetime and
the GN model. In scalar theory there exist two phases:
the precarious and the autonomous phases. In the
pre-carious phase the bare coupling constant is negative infinitesimal, while in the autonomous phase it is positive infinitesimal. In our approach to the GN model there are
S.
K.
KIM,J.
YANG,K.
S.SOH, ANDJ.
H.YEEindeed two phases exactly analogous to scalar theory. In Sec.
II
we introduce our notation and the overall schemes.It
is well known in the scalar theory that the Gaussian eff'ective potential contains the leading1/X
re-sult as its formalX—
+~
limit. We will show explicit-ly in Sec.III
that the large-X limit is a special approxi-mation to the Gaussian method. In this section we will also present how the variational equation can be solved toobtain the wave functional, which demonstrates essentials
of
mathematical techniques without getting involved in the complexityof
the full equation. InSec.
IVwe obtain the effective potentialof
the GN model and the proper-tiesof
two phases are investigated. In the last section we summarize our results and brieAy present the Gaussian analysisof
the chiral Gross-Neveu model. ''"
II.
SCHRODINGER PICTURE GAUSSIAN APPROXIMATIONThe GN model isdefined by the Lagrangian density
X~=/'(i8)g'+ ,
'g
—(f'g'),
a=1,
. . .
,N,
(2.1)in two-dimensional space-time. Note that we take the plus sign for g as Gross and Neveu did. The y algebra
of
the theory is de6ned by1
0
[Yp&}vj gpv& gpv
0
Byemploying the Gaussian trial wave functional ~G&
and its dual defined in Eqs.
(1.
3a) and(1.
3b),we calculate the expectation valueof
the Hamiltonianof
the system inthe form
&GiHiG &
—
=
&H&2
=
—,'f
dxdy[tr[
—
iy y'B(x,
y)Q(y,x)]
j—
f
dxttr[yaQ(x, x
)]tr[y0Q(x, x
)]
+
tr[2Q(x, x }5(x,x)
—
yQ(x,
x)yDQ(x,x
)]
j,
(2.2)where
S—
:
(G+
G) andI
denotes the identity matrix. The divergent function5(x,
x)
can be defined as, in momentum space,5(x,
x)=
f
dp2m (2.4)
If
we are interested only in obtaining the ground-state en-ergyof
the system, we take variations on &H& directlywith respect to
6
and6:
where tr denotes the trace taken over Dirac spinor and
color indices. The matrix
Q(x,
y)is defined asQ(x,
y)=
2&GIP(x
)Pt(y)lG&(2.3)
We are, however, interested in obtaining the effective potential to see
if
dynamical symmetry breaking occurs in the system.For
this purpose, we de6ne the effective HamiltonianH,
z=H
+
f
dxa
u+
—
tr[y
Q(x,
x)]
(2.8) whereH
is obtained by replacing —,'g tr[y
Q(x, x
)]
~
—
o in &H& by
Eq.
(2.2). More explicitly, we write itas
H
=
,
'f
dx d—ytr[
iy
y'i3(—
x,
y)Q(y,x)]
,
'f
dx—
o—2
f
dxtr[2Q(x,
x)5(x;x)
5,
,
-&H
&=0
.
(2.5)—
yDQ(x,x)y
Q(x,
x)]
.
(2.9)These conditions yield the equations
(I —G)hn(I+G)=0,
(I+
G)hn(I
—
G)=0,
(2.6a)
(2.6b)
The n 6eld introduced in
H,
&is the Lagrange multiplierauxiliary 6eld.
If
we take a variation onH,
z with respectto u we obtain
where
hn(x,
y)—
=
i
yy'B(x,
y—)g2
I(x,
y)[y tr[y
Q(x,
x)]
cr
= —
—
tr[y
Q(x, x
)]
= —
g&f(x)g(x)
&,
&H
&=H.
=H„.
Other variational equations are
(2. 10)
+I(x,
x}
—
tr[y
Q(x,
x)y
]j
.(2.7) Equation (2.6a) can be solved exactly for G,
to
obtain the ground-state energyof
the system. The result will be presented later. One can show that the condition (2.6b)is equivalentto Eq.
(2.6a).5
H,
a=0,
5gH,
~=0,
56H,
~=O
.
(2.11a) (2.11b) (2.11c) In obtaining the extremum valueof
H,
&, Eqs. (2.10)—
(2.11)are equivalent to Eqs. (2.6a) and (2.6b). We now explain our strategy in detail.We first solve Eqs. (2.1la)
—
(2.11c)
to determine G,6,
and o.as functionsof
a:
i.
e.
,G=G(a), G=G(a), cr=o(a)
.
It
turns out that the condition(3.
3c)is equivalentto
the condition (3.3b).Multiplying
Eq. (3.
3b) by hN from the left yields Using these results we determineH,
ffand thus V,ff as afunction
of
cx:hN
K—
N+
f hN, KN]
0—
, where(3.
4)Heff H~ff(a)
—
f
dx Vtff(a) (2.12)E~
—
—
h~G.
H,
ff(a)=0
.
da
(2.13)Note that we never use
Eq.
(2.10) in computing V,fffromEq.
(2.12). The informationof Eq.
(2.10}is determined, in this case, byEq.
(2.13).
In the next section we solveEqs. (2.11a)
—
(2.1lc)
in the large-N limit and obtain thee6'ective potential V,ff.
The extremum value
of
H,
ffis then determined from thecondition
0=I,
I
1=i/1, I
2=/0/1
(3.
5}I
"s
are taken tobe Hermitian and satisfy the commuta-tion relacommuta-tionsOne trivial solution
of Eq.
(3.4) isKN=
khN, which leadsto
H
ff with vanishing quantum corrections.To
obtainnontrivial solutions
of Eq.
(3.4), we decompose the2X2
matrix KN(x,
y)
in termsof
fourDirac
matrices. We denote them collectively byI':
III.
EFFECTIVEPOTENTIAL INTHELARGE-N LIMIT In the large-X limit,H,
ffcan be written in the formII',
I
JJ=25,
., i=1,
2,3,
[r',
r
J]
=2ie,
,
„r",
[rP,
I']
=0
.
(3.
6) HN=
—
f
dx dy tr'[hN(x, y)Q(y,x)]
+
f
dx(acr
—
—,'cr},
where(3.
1)KN(x,
y)
is then decomposed in the formK
(xy)=
y
r'f
d"e-'~'"
»KN-.(p).
a=0 (3.7)
hN(x,
y)
=
iy y—
'B(x,
y)+ga5(x
—
y)y
(3.
2)cr
=a,
(I
6)hN(I
+
G—)=0,
(I+6)hN(I
6)
=0
.
—
(3.3a) (3.3b)(3.
3c) 1and the tr' denotes the trace taken over Dirac spinor in-dices only. The variation
of H,
ff with respect to o.,6,
and G yields, respectively, hN(x,
y)=
(—
pI
+gaI')e
2'
hN(x,y)
—
=
f
d»N(x,
~)hN(r,y) P(P2+g2a2)e
—lp(»—y)2'
(3.
8)(3.9}
Other functions relevantto Eq.
(3.4) are written in the formKN(x,
y)=
f
dp[hN
KN](»y) =21
f
2'
[I'[
—
PKN3(P)gaKN2(p}]+f'gaK—
Nl(P)+I'PKN1(p)
Ie"'
"
3 3
KNp(p}+
g
KN(p}
+2
g
I
'KNp(p)KN (p)(3.
10)(3.11}
Substituting Eqs. (3.
7)-(3.
11)into(3.
4) yields3
KNp+
g
KN;=p
+g a
KNPN1 (PKN3+g KN2}
KN& N2 1g aKN1
KN+N3
=
lpKN1From the equations we find
(3.
12a)(3.
12b)(3.
12c) (3.12d)K
(x
y)=%I
+p
+g a
e2'
GN(x,y)
=
(hN 1KN)(x,y)
P d (—
pI +gaI
)eQp
2+g
2a2 (3.14)We can thus determine the matrices KN(x,
y)
and GN(x,y),
the solutionof
Eq.
(3.3b), uniquely except for the sign2650 S.
K.
KIM,J.
YANG,K.
S.SOH, ANDJ.
H.YEEGx=G+=G~
—1[h~,
K]=[h~,
G~]=0
.Using Eqs. (2.3) and (3.15)we find
Q=Q~=(I+Ging
)S~ '(I+Ging)=(I+6')
.
Wecan thus determineH,
z in the large-N limit:Hiv,ff=
—
f
dxtr'K(x,
x)+
,
'f
—dxcr2(x)fdx
i2+~f
dPQ
2+
2 2 22~
(3.15)H,
ff=
f
dx(aa
—
—,'o
)+
—
f
dx dytr'[h (x,
y)Q(y,x
)]
f
dxtr'[y
Q(x, x)y Q(x,
x)],
g2N w~ere h(x,
y) iy—'y
'a(x,
y} 2+y'&(x
—
y)ag+
[y'Q(x,
x)y'
—
5(x,
x)]
(4.1)
f
dxjeff
' (3.17)We take the minus sign from
Eq.
(3.14) in.order to havethe correct zero-point energy
E0..
(4.2) Taking variations on
H,
ff with respect to o., G, and G yields the same equation as Eqs. (3.3a)—(3.
3c)with hz re-placed by h:i.e.
,dp
Eo
=
—
g
,
' fico=
N—f
—
+p
(3.18) (4.3a) in the free fermion field theory limit.If
we take the plussign from
Eq.
(3.14), the system will be unstable.The effective potential is then given by
V
=
—'a
—
Xf
d+p+ga
(I
—
G)h(I+G)=0,
(I
+
G )h(I
G)
=
0
.
—
(4.3b)
(4.3c)
lt
again turns out thatEq.
(4.3c) is equivalentto
Eq.(4.3b). Multiplying
Eq.
(4.3b) by h froin the left yields h—
K
+[h,
K]=0,
where 2 2=
—'a
—
X
I
+
I(M)
1 2 0 g2(g2 lng2+2—
14~
(3.19) ho(p)h;(p)ill
~(4»
gh
(p)g
h;(p)
where
K
=hG.
Nontrivial solutionof Eq.
(4.4) forK
is uniquely determined in exactly the same way as the solu-tionof Eq.
(3.4)forKz.
The results are3 1/2
I,
=f"
lpl,
Io(M)
=
2ir+p
+M
(3.
20) (3.21) h;(p) 3 h; (p)i=1
-1r2~"
Gi~'
(4.6)Here
M
is an arbitrary constant. The effective potential(3.
19) is the same as thatof
Gross and Neveu. After re-normalization we obtain the renormalized efFectivepoten-tial f
2 2
V(a)=
—'a
+
a
4m ln
a0
—
3(3.
22)IV. EFFECTIVEPOTENTIAL BEYOND THK LARGE-N LIMIT
We first write
H,
ff defined inEq.
(2.8)in the form,tak-en trace over color indices,
It
is straightforward to show that this potential exhibits spontaneous symmetry breaking as is done inRef.
3.
Ac-cordingly the Gaussian approximation in the Schrodinger
picture is equivalent to the Gross-Neveu approach in the large-N limit. where 3 h
=ho++
h,l'.
K=K~,
h=h
[h,
K]=[h,
G]=0,
Q=I+G
.
(4.7b) (4.7c) (4.7d) Using the results (4.6) and (4.7d), we can writeh(x,
y) inthe form
We again choose the minus sign in Eqs. (4.5) and (4.6)to
be consistent with the zero-point energy
of
the system as shown inEq. (3.
18). We note thel"
componentof
Giszero. The results given in Eqs. (3.15) and
(3.
16) are also reproducedif
we drop the index N,i.
e.
,a(x,
y)=
f
P
—
gG,
(O)r'
—
gG,
(O)+p
r'
2~
2'
2 2+
g G(O)+ag
r'
e 2 3 gIo(M)
=
2 or—
2,
for which the effective potential can be made finite. We
consider each
of
these two cases separately.(i)The case with g
ID=2/(2N
—
1):
The renormaliza-tion condirenormaliza-tions arewhere
G;(0)'s
are defined in momentum space:G;(0)
=
f
G;(p)
.
(4.8) (4.9) 1 1(N
—
—
—,')Io(M),
g (4.14a) (4.14b)From Eqs. (4.6), (4.8), and (4.9)we obtain the consistency
condition
r
G&(0)=
—
G3(0)+ag
f
p+
G3(0)
forwhich the consistency condition becomes
2% 2N
—
1and the effective potential becomes
(4.15) 2 —1/2 V
g=
—aR2—
N 77l g 2 2 Nm m4~
"M
2 m=ag+
G3(0),
2the condition becomes
(4. 11) (4.10) and
G,
(0)=G2(0)=0.
Defining the effective mass m asr 1 2N
—
1 2 2N 2 2aR+
ln—
3 '2aR
ap 2N—
1 2Nag
=F71 g 771 2 1 1 Pl 2mM
'2—
Io(M)
(4.12)where
Io(M)
is given by (3.21).
We are now ready to evaluate V,z as a function
of
a
and m.It
is(4.16) where we have set
M=[(2N
—
1) 2/N]g~ aeo. In thiscase the bare coupling constant becomes positive infinitesimal as the cutoff goes to infinity. The behavior
of
V,z is qualitatively similarto
the GN result, and in the large-N limit it reproduces the GN result.It
has a minimum at 2 V,s=
—,'a
—
NG3(0)
+
—
tr'X(x,
x
)az
=aoexp
1—
2 (4.17)=
—,a
2—
N m 2 2 Nm 2 1 m ln—
1 2m'—
Io(M)
(4.13)where we have neglected irrelevant infinite constants.
We notice that the condition (4.12) may be understood as
8V/Bm
=0,
which reminds usof
the large-N approxima-tionof
O(N)-symmetric scalar theory. The ground stateof
the theory is determined by the stationary pointsof
V,i.
e.
,by the equations BV/Bm=0
andBV/Ba
=0.
Since the GN model is renormalizable the divergences in (4.12) and (4.13) can be absorbed by a suitable renor-malizationof
coupling constant and wave function. We can do this by defining (d V/dm )~=
I/gii orequivalently by adding counterterms to the original
La-grangian.
If
we define"'Vea
de
2~
o gR2
and require that the renormalized coupling constant gR be finite, we find two cases,
+
—,'Io(M),
g
(4.17a)
(4.17b)
Although the renormalization conditions (4.17)can make the effective potential (4.13) finite and this phase seems similar to a phase in the case
of
the scale A,Ptheoryone,
has to question the existence
of
this phase since theright-hand side
of
(4. 17b) contains an infinite term due toEq.
(2.10). We think that this fact may be relatedto
the point raised by the authorsof Ref.
11and warrantsfur-ther investigation.
and therefore the symmetry breaking occurs for any finite
N. The behavior
of
the effective potential resembles thatof
the so-called autonomous phaseof
A,P theory and ourresult is qualitatively equivalent to the result
of
Lou and Ni who used a coherent wave functional which is some-what different from ours.(ii) The case with g
Io=
—
2:
In this case the2652 S.
K.
KIM,J.
YANG,K.
S.SOH, ANDJ.
H.YEE V. DISCUSSIONSFor
the Gaussian effective potential evaluationof
theGN model, so far there have been developed three different formulations for the wave functionals
of
fermion fields: namely, the delta wave functional, the coherentwave functional, and Floreanini-Jackiw wave furictional which was used in our work. We have found that these apparently different approaches lead to qualitatively equivalent results, and furthermore the results are quite similar to the A,P theory case: there are two phases,
i.
e.
,the precarious phase in which the bare coupling constant g is negative infinitesimal and the autonomous phase where g is positive infinitesimal, and symmetry breaking
I
occurs forany finite
Ã
in the latter phase.Both in A,P theory and in the GN model the Gaussian
variational approach contains the leading
1/X
result asNgoes to infinity. ' ' However, in the chiral Gross-Neveu (CGN) model this does not hold. We will briefly present
our analysis on this model showing that the Gaussian ap-proximation isequivalent
to
the1/N
approximation.The CGN model isdefined by the Lagrangian density L
=f'&'8f'+
,
'g
[(—fg)(Py
—
g)
],
a=1,
2,. .
.,N .(5.1)
The expectation value
of
the Hamiltonian with respect to a trial wave functional is(H)
=
,
'f
d—xdytr[
iy
—
y'B(x,
y)Q(y,x)]
2+
f
dx(trI[y
Q(x,
x)]
—
[y
yQ(x,
x)]
I—
[try Q(x,
x)]
+[try
yQ(x,
x)]
—
4tr[5(x, x)Q(x,
x)])
.
(5.2)Weintroduce auxiliary fields o. and m as
o
=
—
—
(gpss)
=
gtr[y
Q(x, x
)],
2
in=
—
(g.—
1Tystt)
=
—,'g tr[y
yQ(x,
x)]
.
In order tostudy the effective potential in terms
of o
and m we use an effective Hamiltonian(5.3a)
(5.3b)
H,
z=H
+
f
dxa
a+
—
tr[y
Q(x,
x)] +P
n—
—
'
tr[y
yQ(x,
x)]
(5.4)where
a
andP
are Lagrange multiplier fields andH
= ,
'f
dx—dy
tr[
iy
y'B—
(x,
y)Q(y,x)]
—
—,'f
dx(cr+n
)2
f
dxtrI2Q(x,
x)5(x,x)
—
[y
Q(x,
x)]
+[y
yQ(x,
x)]
I.
(5.5)After performing similar calculations to the previous sections we obtain the effective potential V
=
'(a
+P
) Nf
—d [p+—
g(a
+P
)]'
—
I(0)I(0)
2
eff
2'
2—
1—
Io(M)
. , (5.6)where P
=a +P,
and irrelevant infinite constants are neglected. This is indeedof
the same form as the1/X
efFective potential (3.19), and after renormalization one obtains the finite effective potential
of
the CGN modelA2
V
=
—
'P2+
g P2ln~
—
3 (5.7)Thus the Gaussian variational approximation is equiva-lent tothe large-N approximation in the case
of
the CGNmodel, while the former contains the latter as a special limit in the A,P scalar theory and the GN model.
The effective potential (5.7) has a local maximum at
P
=0,
and the absolute minimum at P=foe
~ g. This implies that the chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken and the fermions acquire masses. But in two space-timeI
dimensions, itiswell known that spontaneous breaking
of
acontinuous symmetry is not possible. As shown in thecase
of
the large-X approximation by Witten, ' therefore,the appearance
of
the nontrivial minimum in the Gauss-ian effective potential (5.7) must be interpreted not as an indicationof
the symmetry breakingof
the CGN model, but as an indicationof
aphase transition which gives risetomass generation
of
the physical fermions. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe thank
Dr.
W.
Namgung for many useful discus-sions. This research was supported in part by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation and the Ministryof
Education through the Research Instituteof
Basic Sci-ence.R.
Jackiw and A. Kerman, Phys. Lett. 71A, 158 (1979);T.
Barnes and G.I.
Ghandour, Phys. Rev. D22,924 (1980); A. Duncan, H.Meyer-Ortmanns, andR.
Roskies, ibid. 36, 3788 (1987).R.
Floreanini andR.
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