A Stationary Composition Law for Schwinger-Keldysh Effective Actions

Abstract

Let $W_{\cal O}[J]$ and $W_{\cal C}[J]$ denote the connected generating functionals of an open system and its closed system counterpart, and define the environment-induced contribution $W_{\rm IF}[J]$ by the difference: $ W_{\rm IF}[J]\equiv W_{\cal O}[J]-W_{\cal C}[J].$ The corresponding Legendre transforms, $Γ_{\cal O}$, $Γ_{\cal C}$, and $Γ_{\rm IF}$, do not obey an analogous additive relation but satisfy a stationary composition law given by: \[ Γ_{\cal O}[Φ] = \operatorname*{Stat}_Ψ \left\{ Γ_{\cal C}[Ψ] + Γ_{\rm IF}[Φ-Ψ] \right\} \] where ${\rm Stat}$ denotes evaluation at a solution of the stationarity condition with respect to $Ψ$. This variational composition applies to both local and nonlocal Schwinger-Keldysh effective actions in nonequilibrium quantum field theory. We illustrate its linear and nonlinear realizations through quadratic theories and general time independent effective actions, respectively.