D. -U. Jungnickel, C. Wetterich
Published 1996-10-11Version 1
We review the formalism of the effective average action in quantum field theory which corresponds to a coarse grained free energy in statistical mechanics. The associated exact renormalization group equation and possible nonperturbative approximations for its solution are discussed. This is applied to QCD where one observes the consecutive emergence of mesonic bound states and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking as the coarse graining scale is lowered. We finally present a study of the phenomenological importance of non--renormalizable terms in the effective linear meson model.
Comments: 34 pages, 4 figures ; Based on invited talks by the authors at the `Workshop on Quantum Chromodynamics: Confinement, Collisions, and Chaos', Paris, France, June 1996, and `QCD 96', Yaroslavl, Russia, May 1996
Nonperturbative Flow Equations, Low-Energy QCD and the Chiral Phase Transition
About the possibility of five-dimensional effective theories for low-energy QCD
Nonperturbative Flow Equations with Heat-Kernel Methods at finite Temperature
