Hartree approximation in curved spacetimes revisited: The effective potential in de Sitter spacetime

D. LOPEZ NACIR, F.D. MAZZITELLI, L. TROMBETTA

PHYSICAL REVIEW D - PARTICLE AND FILDS

APS

Lugar: New York; Año: 2014 vol. 88 p. 24006 - 24026

0556-2821

We consider a quantum scalar field with a λφ4 interaction in curved spacetimes. The quantum effects are taken into account nonperturbatively using the Hartree approximation to the two-particle irreducible effective action. Although this approximation has been considered in many previous works, we reconsider it using a consistent nonperturbative renormalization procedure, which we extend to general curved spacetimes. We obtain the renormalized equations for the mean field and for the propagator of the fluctuations, showing explicitly their independence on the arbitrary scale introduced by the regularization scheme. We apply our results to the particular case of de Sitter spacetime and discuss spontaneous symmetry breaking. The results depend strongly on the renormalization procedure.