Zeta function regularization

In mathematics and theoretical physics, zeta-function regularization is a type of regularization or summability method that assigns finite values to superficially divergent sums. The technique is now commonly applied to problems in physics, but has its origins in attempts to give precise meanings to ill-conditioned sums appearing in number theory.

Definition

An example of zeta-function regularization is the calculation of the vacuum expectation value of the energy of a particle field in quantum field theory. It is worth mentioning that, more generally, the zeta-function approach can be used to regularize the whole energy-momentum tensor in curved spacetime ^[1].

The unregulated value of the energy is given by a summation over the zero-point energy of all of the excitation modes of the vacuum:

${\displaystyle \langle 0|T_{00}|0\rangle =\sum _{n}{\frac {\hbar |\omega _{n}|}{2}}}$ 

Here, ${\displaystyle T_{00}}$  is the zero'th component of the energy-momentum tensor and the sum (which may be an integral) is understood to extend over all (positive and negative) energy modes ${\displaystyle \omega _{n}}$ ; the absolute value reminding us that the energy is taken to be positive. This sum, as written, is clearly infinite. The sum may be regularized by writing it as

${\displaystyle \langle 0|T_{00}(s)|0\rangle =\sum _{n}{\frac {\hbar |\omega _{n}|}{2}}|\omega _{n}|^{-s}}$ 

where s is some parameter, taken to be a complex number. For large, real s greater than 4 (for three-dimensional space), the sum is manifestly finite, and thus may often be evaluated theoretically.

Such a sum will typically have a pole at s=4, due to the bulk contributions of the quantum field in three space dimensions. However, it may be analytically continued to s=0 where hopefully there is no pole, thus giving a finite value to the expression. A detailed example of this regularization at work is given in the article on the Casimir effect, where the resulting sum is very explicitly the Riemann zeta-function.

The zeta-regularization is useful as it can often be used in a way such that the various symmetries of the physical system are preserved. Besides the Casimir effect, zeta-function regularization is used in conformal field theory and in fixing the critical spacetime dimension of string theory.

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Heat kernel regularization

The sum

${\displaystyle f(s)=\sum _{n}a_{n}e^{-s|\omega _{n}|}}$ 

is sometimes called a heat kernel or a heat-kernel regularized sum; this name stems from the idea that the ${\displaystyle \omega _{n}}$  can sometimes be understood as eigenvalues of the heat kernel. In mathematics, such a sum is known as a generalized Dirichlet series; its use for averaging is known as an Abelian mean. It is closely related to the Laplace-Stieltjes transform, in that

${\displaystyle f(s)=\int _{0}^{\infty }e^{-st}d\alpha (t)}$ 

where ${\displaystyle \alpha (t)}$  is a step function, with steps of ${\displaystyle a_{n}}$  at ${\displaystyle t=|\omega _{n}|}$ . A number of theorems for the convergence of such a series exist. For example Apostol gives^[2] the following. Let

${\displaystyle L=\limsup _{n\to \infty }{\frac {\log \vert \sum _{k=1}^{n}a_{k}\vert }{|\omega _{n}|}}}$ 

Then the series for ${\displaystyle f(s)}$  converges in the half-plane ${\displaystyle \Re (s)>L}$  and is uniformly convergent on every compact subset of the half-plane ${\displaystyle \Re (s)>L}$ . In almost all applications to physics, one has ${\displaystyle L=0}$ 

History

Much of the early work establishing the convergence and equivalence of series regularized with the heat kernel and zeta function regularization methods was done by G.H. Hardy and J.E. Littlewood in 1916^[1] and is based on the application of the Cahen-Mellin integral. The effort was made in order to obtain values for various ill-defined, conditionally convergent sums appearing in number theory.

See also

• Generating function
• Perron's formula
• Renormalization

References

• ^ G.H. Hardy and J.E. Littlewood, "Contributions to the Theory of the Riemann Zeta-Function and the Theory of the Distribution of Primes", Acta Mathematica, 41(1916) pp.119-196. (See, for example, theorem 2.12)

1. V. Moretti, Direct z-function approach and renormalization of one-loop stress tensor in curved spacetimes, Phys. Rev.D 56, 7797 (1997). Full text available at: hep-th/9705060
2. Tom M. Apostol, Modular Functions and Dirichlet Series in Number Theory,Springer-Verlag New York. (See Chapter 8.)