Inverse Mass Expansions from Worldline Path Integrals - Higher Order Coefficients and Ordering Problems

Denny Fliegner, Peter Haberl, Michael G. Schmidt, Christian Schubert

Published 1995-05-14Version 1

Higher order coefficients of the inverse mass expansion of one--loop effective actions are obtained from a one--dimensional path integral representation. For the evaluation of the path integral with Wick contractions a suitable Green function has to be chosen. We consider the case of a massive scalar loop in the background of both a scalar potential and a (non--abelian) gauge field. For the pure scalar case the method yields the coefficients of the expansion in a minimal set of basis terms whereas complicated ordering problems arise in gauge theory. An appropriate reduction scheme is discussed.