Classical interactions in quantum field theory

I review the formalism, Feynman rules, and combinatorics that constrain a field to propagate classically", strictly in tree diagrams, either by itself, or interacting with other, purely quantum fields. The perturbation theory is reorganized by virtue of the linear terms that introduce the constraints via Lagrange multipliers, generalizing and giving results that cannot be obtained with the standard procedures which start at the quadratic terms. I apply the formalism to a theory of an $O(N)$-symmetric quantum field interacting with a classical" scalar field via cubic interactions in six spacetime dimensions. Using the renormalization group, I examine the effective potential, symmetry breaking with radiative corrections, the fixed points in $d=6-ε$ dimensions, and compare with other works. Other possible generalizations and applications of the formalism are also discussed.

💡 Research Summary

The paper develops a systematic formalism for enforcing a scalar field to propagate “classically” – i.e. only through tree‑level diagrams – within the framework of quantum field theory. The key idea is to introduce a Lagrange multiplier λ together with a pair of Grassmann‑odd ghost fields c and \bar c into the action. The modified action
(\tilde S = S