From condensed matter to higgs physics : solving functional renormalization group equations globally in field space

By means of the functional renormalization group (FRG), systems can be described in a nonperturbative way. The derived flow equations are solved via pseudo-spectral methods. As they allow to resolve the full field dependence of the effective potential and provide highly accurate results, these numerical methods are very powerful but have hardly been used in the FRG context. We show their benefits using several examples. Moreover, we apply the pseudo-spectral methods to explore the phase diagram of a bosonic model with two coupled order parameters and to clarify the nature of a possible metastability of the Higgs-Yukawa potential.In the phase diagram of systems with two competing order parameters, fixed points govern multicritical behavior. Such systems are often discussed in the context of condensed matter. Considering the phase diagram of the bosonic model between two and three dimensions, we discover additional fixed points besides the well-known ones from studies in three dimensions. Interestingly, our findings suggest that in certain regions of the phase diagram, two universality classes coexist. To our knowledge, this is the first bosonic model where coexisting (multi-)criticalities are found. Also, the absence of nontrivial fixed points can have a physical meaning, such as in the electroweak sector of the standard model which suffers from the triviality problem. The electroweak transition giving rise to the Higgs mechanism is dominated by the Gaussian fixed point. Due to the low Higgs mass, perturbative calculations suggest a metastable potential. However, the existence of the lower Higgs-mass bound eventually is interrelated with the maximal ultraviolet extension of the standard model. A relaxation of the lower bound would mean that the standard model may be still valid to even higher scales. Within a simple Higgs-Yukawa model, we discuss the origin of metastabilities and mechanisms, which relax the Higgs-mass bound, including higher field operators.