Renormalization Group in Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

We establish the renormalization group equation for the running action in the context of a one quantum particle system. This equation is deduced by integrating each fourier mode after the other in the path integral formalism. It is free of the well known pathologies which appear in quantum field theory due to the sharp cutoff. We show that for an arbitrary background path the usual local form of the action is not preserved by the flow. To cure this problem we consider a more general action than usual which is stable by the renormalization group flow. It allows us to obtain a new consistent renormalization group equation for the action.