VARIATIONAL PERTURBATION THEORY

Abstract

A nonperturbative method — variational perturbation theory (VPT) — is discussed. A quantity we are interested in is represented by a series, a finite number of terms of which not only describe the region of small coupling constant but reproduce well the strong coupling limit. The method is formulated only in terms of the Gaussian quadratures, and diagrams of the conventional perturbation theory are used. Its efficiency is demonstrated for the quantum-mechanical anharmonic oscillator. The properties of convergence are studied for series in VPT for the [Formula: see text] model. It is shown that it is possible to choose variational additions such that they lead to convergent series for any values of the coupling constant. Upper and lower estimates for the quantities under investigation are considered. The nonperturbative Gaussian effective potential is derived from a more general approach, VPT. Various versions of the variational procedure are explored and the preference for the anharmonic variational procedure in view of convergence of the obtained series is argued. We investigate the renormalization procedure in the φ4 model in VPT. The nonperturbative β function is derived in the framework of the proposed approach. The obtained result is in agreement with four-loop approximation and has the asymptotic behavior as g3/2 for a large coupling constant. We construct the VPT series for Yang-Mills theory and study its convergence properties. We introduce coupling to spinor fields and demonstrate that they do not influence the VPT series convergence properties.