Universality and ambiguity in fermionic effective actions

Abstract

We discuss an ambiguity in the one-loop effective action of massive fields which takes place in massive fermionic theories. The universality of logarithmic UV divergences in different space-time dimensions leads to the non-universality of the finite part of effective action, which can be called the non-local multiplicative anomaly. The general criteria of existence of this phenomena are formulated and applied to fermionic operators with different external fields.