The Non-Trivial Effective Potential of the `Trivial' lambda Phi^4 Theory: A Lattice Test

Abstract

The strong evidence for the `triviality' of (lambda Phi^4)_4 theory is not incompatible with spontaneous symmetry breaking. Indeed, for a `trivial' theory the effective potential should be given exactly by the classical potential plus the free-field zero-point energy of the shifted field; i.e., by the one-loop effective potential. When this is renormalized in a simple, but nonperturbative way, one finds, self-consistently, that the shifted field does become non-interacting in the continuum limit. For a classically scale-invariant (CSI) lambda Phi^4 theory one finds m_h^2 = 8 pi^2 v^2, predicting a 2.2 TeV Higgs boson. Here we extend our earlier work in three ways: (i) we discuss the analogy with the hard-sphere Bose gas; (ii) we extend the analysis from the CSI case to the general case; and (iii) we propose a test of the predicted shape of the effective potential that could be tested in a lattice simulation.