Resurgence theory, ghost-instantons, and analytic continuation of path integrals

DOI10.1007/JHEP10(2013)041zbMATH Open1342.81227arXiv1308.1108OpenAlexW3103880953MaRDI QIDQ737668FDOQ737668

Authors: Gerald V. Dunne, Mithat Ünsal, Gökçe Başar 

Publication date: 12 August 2016

Published in: Journal of High Energy Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: A general quantum mechanical or quantum field theoretical system in the path integral formulation has both real and complex saddles (instantons and ghost-instantons). Resurgent asymptotic analysis implies that both types of saddles contribute to physical observables, even if the complex saddles are not on the integration path i.e., the associated Stokes multipliers are zero. We show explicitly that instanton-anti-instanton and ghost--anti-ghost saddles both affect the expansion around the perturbative vacuum. We study a self-dual model in which the analytic continuation of the partition function to negative values of coupling constant gives a pathological exponential growth, but a homotopically independent combination of integration cycles (Lefschetz thimbles) results in a sensible theory. These two choices of the integration cycles are tied with a quantum phase transition. The general set of ideas in our construction may provide new insights into non-perturbative QFT, string theory, quantum gravity, and the theory of quantum phase transitions.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1308.1108

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zbMATH Keywords

nonperturbative effectssolitons monopoles and instantons

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Nonperturbative methods of renormalization applied to problems in quantum field theory (81T16) Path integrals in quantum mechanics (81S40)

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Uses Software

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