QED in the Exact Renormalization Group

Abstract

The functional flow equation and the Quantum Master equation are consistently solved in perturbation for the chiral symmetric QED with and without four-fermi interactions. Due to the presence of momentum cutoff, unconventional features related to gauge symmetry are observed even in our perturbative results. In the absence of the four-fermi couplings, one-loop calculation gives us the Ward identity, $Z_{1}=Z_{2}$, and the standard results of anomalous dimensions and the beta function for the gauge coupling. It is a consequence of regularization scheme independence in one-loop computation. We also find a photon mass term. When included, four-fermi couplings contribute to the beta function and the Ward identity is also modified, $Z_{1} \neq Z_{2}$, due to a term proportional to the photon mass multiplied by the four-fermi couplings.