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Is Wick rotation something that is necessary to define QFT, or is it just a calculational trick that is a quick way to get a result that is justified by some other means?
atyy said:Although rotating the contour doesn't change its value, how do we know that integral along the infinite imaginary line has the same value as the original integral along the infinite real line?
ParticleGrl said:We know BECAUSE rotating the contour doesn't change the value.
Its a standard trick from complex analysis. Start by promoting the integral along the real line to a contour integral (we can do this if the function limits to 0 fast enough as you head outward on the complex plane). We can then use the standard residue theorem to evaluate the integral.
In this case, instead of using residue theorem, we just make use of the fact that the result of the contour integral just depends on the pole structure, so as long as we don't cross any poles when we rotate the contour, we know we don't change the value, so the two integrals are equivalent.
I guess the curve that closes the contour has the same value in both cases?
Also, in the discussion on p113 he says the original integral (14.18) is divergent unless d<4, but after Wick rotation it's finite for d<8. If the original integral isn't divergent, I guess Wick rotation is just a calculational trick. But in the cases where the original integral isn't well-defined, is Wick rotation more than a calculational trick and actually a defining assumption?
ParticleGrl said:Wick rotation won't change the dimensions where the integral diverges. If you look carefully, you'll see that he has taken derivatives of the original integral..
Ben Niehoff said:The Wick rotation in the context given does depend on the pole prescription, but the pole prescription comes from the definition of the Feynman propagator. The poles on the real axis get moved up and down in just such a way that the Wick rotation makes sense.
ParticleGrl said:Also, yes, the procedure where you take derivatives to render a divergent integral finite, do the integral, and then integrate to "undo" the original derivatives is something that makes field theory hard to deal with rigorously. There is a formally infinite integration constant kicking around somewhere. This isn't the wick rotation though, its a combination of a regulator and some renormalization.
Ben Niehoff said:In my earlier post, I was thinking more of the idea of going to Euclideanized time to make the path integral appear more convergent. This is where the mathematical subtleties come up. For example, in Euclideanized time, one can find Yang-Mills instantons by solving self-dual equations. But the existence of self-dual 2-forms relies on the Euclidean signature of R^4; in Minkowski space, self-dual forms do not exist. So there is some subtlety in exactly how these instantons enter the path integral.
Ben Niehoff said:In my earlier post, I was thinking more of the idea of going to Euclideanized time to make the path integral appear more convergent. This is where the mathematical subtleties come up. For example, in Euclideanized time, one can find Yang-Mills instantons by solving self-dual equations. But the existence of self-dual 2-forms relies on the Euclidean signature of R^4; in Minkowski space, self-dual forms do not exist. So there is some subtlety in exactly how these instantons enter the path integral.
tom.stoer said:The Wick rotation can be defined rather rigorously once the pole and cut structure is known. This is possible in QM, but b/c exact solutions are out of reach in QFT, it is by no means clear whether Wick rotation is a valid operation; in addition it cannot be justified based on the results which may be valid in a restricted domain only (e.g. perturbatively); one may miss certain features of the theory.
Anyway - b/c there are no mathematically rigorous constructions of quantum field theories, Wick rotation is just another dirty trick.
tom.stoer said:so they turn it bround and use it as a 'definition'. OK, I mean the whole PI stuff is not well-defined afaik, so it's no problem to add another ingredient ...
I think that's the way they studied it originally in condensed matter physicsatyy said:Can Kadanoff-Wilson renormalization be done in the canonical formalism?
tom.stoer said:I think that's the way they studied it originally in condensed matter physics
Physics Monkey said:Regarding the validity of the rotation, it may be true in some formal sense that things are analytic in the appropriate way and can be continued. Nevertheless, actually doing the continuation is an enormous practical problem. For example, at finite temperature in a quantum many-body system it may be most convenient to formulate the problem in Euclidean signature. The physical response functions of interest are then obtained by analytic continuation of the Euclidean correlators, however, it is known that this continuation does not commute with many common approximations including the epsilon and large N expansions. Sometimes this is physically obvious since, for example, large N is like a thermodynamic limit and hence can introduce new singularities. In these situations one must often formulate the epsilon or large N expansion directly in real time at considerable complication e.g. in a Keldysh or quantum Boltzmann kind of setup.
The problem of analytic continuation also affects Euclidean lattice studies of field theory. It may be very hard to extract dynamical quantities at finite temperature such as the viscosity.
Wick rotation is a mathematical technique used to convert a problem in Minkowski space (4 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time) to a problem in Euclidean space (3 dimensions of space). It is necessary in science because many equations and calculations are simpler to solve in Euclidean space rather than Minkowski space.
Yes, Wick rotation can be applied to any problem that involves calculations in Minkowski space. However, it is not always necessary or useful to do so.
Wick rotation does not affect the outcome of a scientific study itself. It only changes the mathematical representation of the problem, making it easier to solve. The results of the study should be the same whether Wick rotation is used or not.
One limitation of Wick rotation is that it can only be applied to problems that are Lorentz invariant (i.e. they are not affected by changes in reference frame). Additionally, it may not always result in a simpler problem and can sometimes lead to complex equations that are difficult to solve.
Wick rotation is commonly used in theoretical physics, particularly in quantum field theory and string theory. However, it may not be as commonly used in other fields of science.