Massless limit of massive self-interacting vector fields

Abstract

We study massive self-interacting vector field theories with mass added ``by hand". We show that the massless limit of the quartic self-interacting vector field theory is not smooth. Pathological behavior of the theory is not limited only at the classical level, even at the quantum level unitarity is violated at the two-loop. Using the Vainshtein mechanism, we show that it fails beyond the strong-coupling scale and hence a massless limit is not smooth even in quantum theory.