Dimensional reduction and thermodynamics of a non-local scalar field theory

Abstract

In this paper, we study the dimensional reduction of a nonlocal scalar field theory to 1+2 dimensions. This nonlocal model introduces a light mass parameter as a scale that primarily modifies the infrared regime of the theory. We constraint the external sources to a bidimensional plane to obtain the effective Green's function and propose an effective Lagrangian for the scalar field in 1+2 dimensions. Using the static propagator, we calculate the interaction energy between point-like charges in the planar space. Furthermore, we evaluate the causal and Feynman Green's functions, and discuss the unitarity of the effective planar model at tree level. Finally, we implement the Matsubara formalism to investigate the thermodynamics of the planar model. The exact thermal free energy shows the fractional degrees of freedom characteristic of kinematic confinement and imposes a strict low-temperature validity bound ($T \ll Λ$) to preserve the macroscopic thermodynamic stability.