The Renormalization Group and the Effective Potential in the Wess-Zumino model

Abstract

We consider the effective potential V in the massless Wess-Zumino model. By using the renormalization group equation, we show that the explicit and implicit dependence of V on the renormalization mass scale mu cancels. If V has an extremum at some non-vanishing value of the background field, then it follows that V is â flatâ , independent of the background field. This consistent with the general requirement that V be convex. The consequences for super-symmetric gauge theories are briefly considered.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author