Massive Schwinger model within mass perturbation theory (Q1290553)

The two-dimensional Schwinger model with one fermion (either massive or massless) has been the subject of intensive studies in the past. The exact solution of the massless model was discovered by J. Schwinger in 1962. As has been realized later, ``bosonization'' specific to two dimensions gives the result right away and shows that the model exhibits different groundstates (\(\theta\)-vacua) connected by global gauge transformations owing to the nontriviality of the first homotopy group, i.e., \(\pi_1(U(1))= \mathbb{Z}\). Confinement takes place in these models similar to the situation in four-dimensional QCD: all states above the ground state are \(n\)-particle states of the Schwinger boson, free in the massless, interacting in the massive case. Ch. Adam gives a detailed account of the latter case employing a perturbation expansion with respect to the mass term in the Lagrangian. A major point in his discussion is the computation of the vacuum functional and the vacuum energy density, thereby showing that the perturbation series is infrared-finite. A peculiar picture emerged: two observable stable particles seem to exist, the Schwinger boson and a boundstate formed by two such bosons.