Hermiticity Breaking and Restoration in the $(g\phi^4 + h\phi^6)_{1+1}$ Field Theoretic Model

Abstract

We introduce hermiticity as a new symmetry and show that when starting with a model which is Hermitian in the classical level, quantum corrections can break hermiticity while the theory stay physically acceptable. To show this, we calculated the effective potential of the ($g\phi^{4}+h\phi^{6}$)$_{1+1}$ model up to first order in $g$ and $h$ couplings which is sufficient as the region of interest has finite correlation length for which mean field calculation may suffice. We show that, in the literature, there is a skipped phase of the theory due to the wrong believe that the theory in the broken hermiticity phase is unphysical. However, in view of recent discoveries of the reality of the spectrum of the non-Hermitian but $PT$ symmetric theories, in the broken hermiticity phase the theory possesses $PT$ symmetry and thus physically acceptable. In fact, ignoring this phase will lead to violation of universality when comparing this model predictions with other models in the same class of universality.