The long-range interaction in massless (lambda Phi^4)_4 theory

Abstract

Does massless (lambda Phi^4)_4 theory exhibit spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB)? The raw 1-loop result implies that it does, but the "RG-improved" result implies the opposite. I argue that the appropriate "low-energy effective theory" is a nonlocal field theory involving an attractive, long-range interaction Phi^2(x) Phi^2(y)/z^4, where z=|x-y|. RG improvement then requires running couplings for both this interaction and the original pointlike interaction. A crude calculation in this framework yields SSB even after "RG improvement" and closely agrees with the raw 1-loop result.