Pauli–Villars regularization

In theoretical physics, Pauli–Villars regularization (P–V) is a procedure that isolates divergent terms from
finite parts in loop calculations in field theory in order to renormalize the theory. Wolfgang Pauli and Felix
Villars published the method in 1949, based on earlier work by Richard Feynman, Ernst Stueckelberg and
Dominique Rivier.[1]

In this treatment, a divergence arising from a loop integral (such as vacuum polarization or electron self-
energy) is modulated by a spectrum of auxiliary particles added to the Lagrangian or propagator. When the
masses of the fictitious particles are taken as an infinite limit (i.e., once the regulator is removed) one expects to
recover the original theory.

This regulator is gauge invariant due to the auxiliary particles being minimally coupled to the photon field
through the gauge covariant derivative. It is not gauge covariant, though, so Pauli–Villars regularization cannot
be used in QCD calculations. P–V serves as an alternative to the more favorable dimensional regularization in
specific circumstances, such as in chiral phenomena, where a change of dimension alters the properties of the
Dirac gamma matrices.

Gerard 't Hooft and Martinus J. G. Veltman invented, in addition to dimensional regularization, the method of
unitary regulators,[2] which is a Lagrangian-based Pauli–Villars method with a discrete spectrum of auxiliary
masses, using the path-integral formalism.

Contents
Examples
See also
Notes
References

Examples
Pauli–Villars regularization consists of introducing a fictitious mass term. For example, we would replace a
photon propagator , by , where can be thought of as the mass of a

fictitious heavy photon, whose contribution is subtracted from that of an ordinary photon.[3]

See also
Dimensional regularization
Ghosts (physics)
Regularization (physics)

Notes
 1. Schweber, S. S. (1994). QED and the Men Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and
Tomonaga (https://archive.org/details/qedmenwhomadeitd0000schw). Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press.
2. G. 't Hooft, M. Veltman, Diagrammar, CERN report 73-9 (1973), see Secs. 2 and 5-8; reprinted
in 't Hooft, G. (1994). Under the Spell of Gauge Principle. Singapore: World Scientific.
3. Peskin; Shroeder (1995). An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Reprint ed.). Westview
Press. ISBN 0-201-50397-2.

References
Bjorken, J. D.; Drell, S. D. (1964). Relativistic Quantum Mechanics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
OCLC 534560 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/534560).
Collins, John (1984). Renormalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-
24261-4.
Hatfield, Brian (1992). Quantum Field Theory of Point Particles and Strings. Redwood,
California: Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-36079-9.
Itzykson, C.; Zuber, J-B. (1980). Quantum Field Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-
032071-3.
Pauli, W.; Villars, F. (1949). "On the Invariant Regularization in Relativistic Quantum Theory".
Reviews of Modern Physics. 21 (3): 434–444. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.21.434 (https://doi.org/
10.1103%2FRevModPhys.21.434).

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