Comment on the Vacuum Energy Density for λϕ4 Theory in d Spacetime Dimensions

Abstract

In a recent article we showed that the vacuum energy density in two spacetime dimensions for a wide variety of integrable quantum field theories has the form ρvac=−m2/2g where m is a physical mass and g is a generalized coupling, where in the free field limit g→0, ρvac diverges. This vacuum energy density has the form ⟨Tμν⟩=−ρvacgμν, and has previously been considered as a contribution to the stress energy tensor in Einstein’s gravity as a “cosmological constant”. We speculated that in four spacetime dimensions ρvac takes a similar form ρvac=−m4/2g, but did not support this idea in any specific model. In this article, we study this problem for λϕ4 theory in d spacetime dimensions. We show how to obtain the exactρvac for the sinh–Gordon theory in the weak coupling limit by using a saddle point approximation. This calculation indicates that the vacuum energy can be well-defined, positive or negative, without spontaneous symmetry breaking. We also show that ρvac satisfies a Callan–Symanzik type of renormalization group equation. For the most interesting case physically, ρvac is positive and can arise from a marginally relevant negative coupling g and the vacuum energy flows to zero at low energies.