Effective potential in the BET formalism

Abstract

We calculate the one-loop effective potential at finite temperature for a system of massless scalar fields with quartic interaction $\lambda\phi^4$ in the framework of the boundary effective theory (BET) formalism. The calculation relies on the solution of the classical equation of motion for the field, and Gaussian fluctuations around it. Our result is non-perturbative and differs from the standard one-loop effective potential for field values larger than $T/\sqrt{\lambda}$.