Renormalization Group on Wiener Space: Spectral Theory and Universality

Abstract

We develop a rigorous renormalization group (RG) formalism on Wiener space. We introduce an RG operator $\mathcal R$ acting on probability measures over continuous paths, whose fixed point is the Wiener measure. We linearize $\mathcal{R}$ around the Brownian fixed point and analyze the spectral structure of the resulting operator $\mathscr{L}$. Its eigenvectors are too singular to be realized as honest measures on path space, and we therefore develop a generalized spectral theory within the framework of white noise analysis (Hida calculus). The eigenvectors of $\mathscr{L}$ are realized as Hida distributions, satisfying $\mathscr{L} U=λU$ in the weak sense. This analysis yields structural results such as a spectral gap and a diagonal-concentration property of the eigenvectors. Moreover, we identify a family $\{\mathfrak{U}_n\}_{n \geq 0}$ of eigenvectors with eigenvalues $λ_n = 2^{1-n/2}$, consisting of Wick polynomials of white noise formally expressed as $\mathfrak{U}_n = \int_0^1 {:}\dot W(t)^n{:}\, dt$, and rigorously constructed as Hida distributions. We then use this spectral structure to uncover a finer, second layer of universality in the Donsker invariance principle: not only is the convergence of random walks towards the Brownian scaling limit universal, but the entire hierarchy of leading corrections to the Brownian limit is universal as well, governed by the eigenpairs $(λ_n, \mathfrak{U}_n)$. We also show, at a formal level, that the framework developed here extends to Gibbs-type perturbations of the Brownian fixed point, in the spirit of self-interacting quantum field theories. In particular, we recover the standard irrelevant/marginal/relevant classification, usually obtained in the physics literature by power-counting, solely from the spectral analysis of $\mathscr{L}$.