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The dependence of a coupling g(μ) on the energy-scale is known as "running of the coupling". The theory of the running of couplings is given by the renormalization group , though it should be kept in mind that the renormalization group is a more general concept describing any sort of scale variation in a physical system (see the full article ...
written in terms of the fine structure constant in natural units, α = e 2 /4π. [2] This beta function tells us that the coupling increases with increasing energy scale, and QED becomes strongly coupled at high energy. In fact, the coupling apparently becomes infinite at some finite energy, resulting in a Landau pole. However, one cannot ...
For quantum chromodynamics, the constant changes with respect to the distance between the particles. This phenomenon is known as asymptotic freedom. Forces which have a coupling constant greater than 1 are said to be "strongly coupled" while those with constants less than 1 are said to be "weakly coupled." [7]
The value of the fine-structure constant α is linked to the observed value of this coupling associated with the energy scale of the electron mass: the electron's mass gives a lower bound for this energy scale, because it (and the positron) is the lightest charged object whose quantum loops can contribute to the running.
The scale anomaly, which gives rise to a running coupling constant. In QED this gives rise to the phenomenon of the Landau pole. In quantum chromodynamics (QCD) this leads to asymptotic freedom. The chiral anomaly in either chiral or vector field theories with fermions. This has close connection with topology through the notion of instantons.
In classical field theory, such as gauge theory in four-dimensional spacetime, the coupling constant is a dimensionless constant. However, upon quantization, logarithmic divergences in one-loop diagrams of perturbation theory imply that this "constant" actually depends on the typical energy scale of the processes under considerations, called ...
This series diverges asymptotically, but in quantum electrodynamics (QED) at the second order the difference from experimental data is in the order of 10 −10. This close agreement holds because the coupling constant (also known as the fine-structure constant ) of QED is much less than 1.
On the other hand, a scenario, where a non-Gaussian (i.e. nontrivial) fixed point is approached in the UV limit, is referred to as asymptotic safety. [3] Asymptotically safe theories may be well defined at all scales despite being nonrenormalizable in perturbative sense (according to the classical scaling dimensions).