Renormalization in self-consistent approximation schemes at finite temperature. III. Global symmetries

Abstract

We investigate the symmetry properties for Baym's $\ensuremath{\Phi}$-derivable schemes. We show that in general the solutions of the dynamical equations of motion, derived from approximations of the $\ensuremath{\Phi}$ functional, do not satisfy the Ward-Takahashi identities of the symmetry of the underlying classical action, although the conservation laws for the expectation values of the corresponding Noether currents are satisfied exactly for the approximation. Further we prove that one can define an effective action functional in terms of the self-consistent propagators which is invariant under the operation of the same symmetry group representation as the classical action. The requirements for this theorem to hold true are the same as for perturbative approximations: The symmetry has to be realized linearly on the fields and it must be free of anomalies; i.e., there should exist a symmetry-conserving regularization scheme. In addition, if the theory is renormalizable in Dyson's narrow sense, it can be renormalized with counterterms which do not violate the symmetry.