Retarded circle-compactified massless propagator ($G_{\mathrm{ret}}=R^{-1}{\sum }_n{e}^{2\pi in\Delta w/R}{G}_{\mathrm{ret}}^{(4,m_n)},m_n=2\pi |n|/R$)

For a massless field on Minkowski space times a circle of circumference $R$, the compact delta distribution expands as $R^{-1}{\sum }_n{e}^{2\pi in\Delta w/R}$. The noncompact retarded Green function in each Fourier sector is that of a four-dimensional field with mass $m_n$. Equivalently, the time-frequency denominator is ${\mathbf{k}}^2+m_n^2-(\omega +i0{)}^2$, putting both poles below the real axis. At equal compact positions the sum has one zero mode and a doubly counted nonzero mass tower.

At zero frequency, sum the Kaluza-Klein tower of three-spatial-dimensional Yukawa kernels: $[4\pi Rr{]}^{-1}(1+2{\sum }_{n\ge 1}{e}^{-2\pi nr/R})$. The geometric series gives the displayed function. It behaves as $1/(4{\pi }^2{r}^2)$ for $r\ll R$, the four-spatial-dimensional Coulomb kernel, and as $1/(4\pi Rr)$ for $r\gg R$, the three-spatial-dimensional kernel with a zero-mode normalization factor.