The c and a-theorems and the Local Renormalisation Group

Abstract

The Zamolodchikov c-theorem has led to important new insights in our understanding of the renormalisation group and the geometry of the space of QFTs. Here, we review the parallel developments of the search for a higher-dimensional generalisation of the c-theorem and of the Local Renormalisation Group. The idea of renormalisation with position-dependent couplings, running under local Weyl scaling, is traced from its early realisations to the elegant modern formalism of the local renormalisation group. The key role of the associated Weyl consistency conditions in establishing RG flow equations for the coefficients of the trace anomaly in curved spacetime, and their relation to the c-theorem and four-dimensional a-theorem, is explained in detail. A number of different derivations of the c-theorem in two dimensions are presented -- using spectral functions, RG analysis of Green functions of the energy-momentum tensor T_{mu nu}, and dispersion relations -- and are generalised to four dimensions. The obstruction to establishing monotonic C-functions related to the beta_c and beta_b trace anomaly coefficients in four dimensions is discussed. The possibility of deriving an a-theorem, involving the coefficient beta_a of the Euler-Gauss-Bonnet density in the trace anomaly, is explored initially by formulating the QFT on maximally symmetric spaces. Then the formulation of the weak a-theorem using a dispersion relation for four-point functions of T^mu_mu is presented. Finally, we describe the application of the local renormalisation group to the issue of limit cycles in theories with a global symmetry and it is shown how this sheds new light on the geometry of the space of couplings in QFT.