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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 ...
Richard Feynman, one of the originators and early developers of the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED), referred to the fine-structure constant in these terms: There is a most profound and beautiful question associated with the observed coupling constant, e – the amplitude for a real electron to emit or absorb a real photon. It is a ...
Because the theory is "sick" for any negative value of the coupling constant, the series does not converge but is at best an asymptotic series. From a modern perspective, we say that QED is not well defined as a quantum field theory to arbitrarily high energy. [30] The coupling constant runs to infinity at finite energy, signalling a Landau pole.
The potential consists of two parts. The first one, dominate at short distances, typically for < fm. [3] It arises from the one-gluon exchange between the quark and its anti-quark, and is known as the Coulombic part of the potential, since it has the same form as the well-known Coulombic potential induced by the electromagnetic force (where is the electromagnetic coupling constant).
The values of under the flow are called running couplings. As was stated in the previous section, the most important information in the RG flow are its fixed points . The possible macroscopic states of the system, at a large scale, are given by this set of fixed points.
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.
[2] [3] The fact that couplings depend on the momentum (or length) scale is the central idea behind the renormalization group. Landau poles appear in theories that are not asymptotically free, such as quantum electrodynamics (QED) or φ 4 theory—a scalar field with a quartic interaction—such as may describe the Higgs boson. In these ...