On Size and Shape of the Average Meson Fields in the Semibosonized Nambu & Jona-Lasinio Model

We consider a two-flavor Nambu \& Jona-Lasinio model in Hartree approximation involving scalar-isoscalar and pseudoscalar-isovector quark-quark interactions. Average meson fields are defined by minimizing the effective Euklidean action. The fermionic part of the action, which contains the full Dirac sea, is regularized within Schwinger's proper-time scheme. The meson fields are restricted to the chiral circle and to hedgehog configurations. The only parameter of the model is the constituent quark mass $M$ which simultaneously controls the regularization. We evaluate meson and quark fields self-consistently in dependence on the constituent quark mass. It is shown that the self-consistent fields do practically not depend on the constituent quark mass. This allows us to define a properly parameterized reference field which for physically relevant constituent masses can be used as a good approximation to the exactly calculated one. The reference field is chosen to have correct behaviour for small and large radii. To test the agreement between self-consistent and reference fields we calculate several observables like nucleon energy, mean square radius, axial-vector constant and delta-nucleon mass splitting in dependence on the constituent quark mass. The agreement is found to be very well. Figures available on request.Comment: 12 pages (LATEX), 3 figures available on request, report FZR 93-1

Regularity Properties and Pathologies of Position-Space Renormalization-Group Transformations

We reconsider the conceptual foundations of the renormalization-group (RG) formalism, and prove some rigorous theorems on the regularity properties and possible pathologies of the RG map. Regarding regularity, we show that the RG map, defined on a suitable space of interactions (= formal Hamiltonians), is always single-valued and Lipschitz continuous on its domain of definition. This rules out a recently proposed scenario for the RG description of first-order phase transitions. On the pathological side, we make rigorous some arguments of Griffiths, Pearce and Israel, and prove in several cases that the renormalized measure is not a Gibbs measure for any reasonable interaction. This means that the RG map is ill-defined, and that the conventional RG description of first-order phase transitions is not universally valid. For decimation or Kadanoff transformations applied to the Ising model in dimension $d \ge 3$, these pathologies occur in a full neighborhood $\{ \beta > \beta_0 ,\, |h| < \epsilon(\beta) \}$ of the low-temperature part of the first-order phase-transition surface. For block-averaging transformations applied to the Ising model in dimension $d \ge 2$, the pathologies occur at low temperatures for arbitrary magnetic-field strength. Pathologies may also occur in the critical region for Ising models in dimension $d \ge 4$. We discuss in detail the distinction between Gibbsian and non-Gibbsian measures, and give a rather complete catalogue of the known examples. Finally, we discuss the heuristic and numerical evidence on RG pathologies in the light of our rigorous theorems.Comment: 273 pages including 14 figures, Postscript, See also ftp.scri.fsu.edu:hep-lat/papers/9210/9210032.ps.

The repulsive lattice gas, the independent-set polynomial, and the Lov\'asz local lemma

We elucidate the close connection between the repulsive lattice gas in equilibrium statistical mechanics and the Lovasz local lemma in probabilistic combinatorics. We show that the conclusion of the Lovasz local lemma holds for dependency graph G and probabilities {p_x} if and only if the independent-set polynomial for G is nonvanishing in the polydisc of radii {p_x}. Furthermore, we show that the usual proof of the Lovasz local lemma -- which provides a sufficient condition for this to occur -- corresponds to a simple inductive argument for the nonvanishing of the independent-set polynomial in a polydisc, which was discovered implicitly by Shearer and explicitly by Dobrushin. We also present some refinements and extensions of both arguments, including a generalization of the Lovasz local lemma that allows for "soft" dependencies. In addition, we prove some general properties of the partition function of a repulsive lattice gas, most of which are consequences of the alternating-sign property for the Mayer coefficients. We conclude with a brief discussion of the repulsive lattice gas on countably infinite graphs.Comment: LaTex2e, 97 pages. Version 2 makes slight changes to improve clarity. To be published in J. Stat. Phy