All-Order Renormalization of the Propagator Matrix for Fermionic Systems with Flavor Mixing

Abstract

We consider a mixed system of Dirac fermions in a general parity-nonconserving theory and renormalize the propagator matrix to all orders in the pole scheme, in which the squares of the renormalized masses are identified with the complex pole positions and the wave-function renormalization (WFR) matrices are adjusted in compliance with the Lehmann-Symanzik-Zimmermann reduction formalism. We present closed analytic all-order expressions and their expansions through two loops for the renormalization constants in terms of the scalar, pseudoscalar, vector, and pseudovector parts of the unrenormalized self-energy matrix, which is computable from the one-particle-irreducible Feynman diagrams of the flavor transitions. We identify residual degrees of freedom in the WFR matrices and propose an additional renormalization condition to exhaust them. We then explain how our results may be generalized to the case of unstable fermions, in which we encounter the phenomenon of WFR bifurcation. In the special case of a solitary unstable fermion, the all-order-renormalized propagator is presented in a particularly compact form.