Use units , the Minkowski metric , and the Fourier transform convention . Here gamma matrices satisfy , and is the Dirac adjoint. A single Dirac field describes both Electrons and Positrons; these are the particle and antiparticle sectors of that field.
The free Maxwell Lagrangian and Dirac action, with a linear covariant gauge condition for the photon, give
Before gauge fixing, the Maxwell Lagrangian has zero modes in field theory along , so its quadratic operator cannot be inverted on all potentials. In the linear Lorenz gauge, the Faddeev-Popov determinant is . It is independent of and may be absorbed into the normalization; the corresponding Faddeev-Popov ghost fields have no interacting vertices in this Abelian linear gauge. A residual gauge symmetry is removed by the specified boundary conditions.
The free generating functional is
The Dirac field variables and their sources are independent Grassmann fields in this path integral. They anticommute; replacing them by ordinary commuting fields would give the wrong statistics and the wrong functional determinant. The bosonic Gaussian functional integral contributes an inverse square root of a determinant, and the Grassmann Gaussian integral contributes a determinant. If is the photon quadratic operator and , completing the square gives
In the last expression and are the photon propagator and Dirac propagator, with Feynman i-epsilon prescription. The products include the appropriate spacetime integrals and index contractions. Functional derivatives with respect to , and consistently ordered left or right Grassmann derivatives with respect to the fermionic sources, generate the time ordering of the corresponding fields. In Feynman gauge, , the momentum-space two-point functions are
The Feynman i-epsilon prescription specifies vacuum boundary conditions rather than an arbitrary inverse of the differential operator.
The covariant photon propagator uses four potential components. Its operator formalism counterpart is Gupta-Bleuler quantization: impose and take the Gupta-Bleuler null-state quotient. This leaves a positive physical state space with two transverse photon polarization vectors. The temporal and longitudinal oscillator components occur in intermediate covariant expressions; the Ward identity removes their dependence from physical amplitudes. The free Dirac field uses the canonical anticommutation relations, producing the same fermionic signs as its Grassmann fields in the path integral.
The operator-path-integral equivalence can be seen directly with a regulator. Divide time into small intervals and insert complete sets of field-coordinate states for bosons, and resolutions in fermionic coherent states for fermions. The bosonic matrix elements produce the phase-space factor ; integrating out the quadratic canonical momentum produces the bosonic action. The fermionic coherent state overlaps produce the first-order term and the Berezin integral measure. Multiplying the short-time kernels recovers the path integral. Projecting the remote endpoints onto the Fock vacuum with an infinitesimal damping selects the same Feynman propagators as the operator formalism. Field insertions become time-ordered products under this construction. Conversely, their quadratic generating functional obeys the canonical free-field equations and has precisely the oscillator two-point functions, so its higher free correlators agree by the Wick theorem. This establishes the equivalence for the regulated free theory and order by order in the perturbation series.
To couple the matter field electromagnetically, promote its global phase symmetry to the local transformation
The gauge covariant derivative obeys . Replacing by in the Dirac action therefore gives the invariant matter density
The electromagnetic field tensor is unchanged by the local transformation. Thus the unfixed quantum electrodynamics action is gauge-invariant. The Dirac current is conserved by the matter equations, and the Electron and Positron excitations carry opposite charges. The added gauge fixing density selects a representative and is not itself invariant under arbitrary local transformations; it does not change gauge-invariant observables. At a free fermion vertex,
For external on-shell Dirac spinors the corresponding current contraction vanishes. The quantum extension is the Ward identity, which makes physical amplitudes insensitive to adding a multiple of the photon momentum to its polarization vector. A gauge-compatible regularization preserves this vector-current identity.
With , expand in powers of . A term of order contains spacetime integrations and . Applying the Wick theorem pairs the free fields: an - Wick contraction supplies a photon propagator, and a - Wick contraction supplies an oriented Dirac propagator. Each insertion supplies an interaction vertex. The permutations of contractions cancel the expansion factorials except for the Feynman-diagram symmetry factor. Interchanging Grassmann fields produces the fermionic sign, including a minus sign for every closed fermion loop. This is how Feynman diagrams arise from expectation values, rather than an extra dynamical assumption.
The normalized vacuum generating functional removes components with no external insertions. In the operator formalism, for an interacting-vacuum expectation value of an inserted product , the same cancellation appears as
Vacuum projection and the Feynman i-epsilon prescription are implicit. The linked-cluster theorem exponentiates all connected vacuum bubbles into the same factor in numerator and denominator, so it cancels. Normalize by to remove every vacuum component. This cancellation of vacuum bubbles still leaves products of disconnected diagrams that each contain external insertions. If only connected correlators are wanted, differentiate the connected generating functional .
The resulting momentum-space QED Feynman rules for the bare theory can be stated in Feynman gauge as follows:
Figure 1.
An oriented electron line meets a photon at the QED interaction vertex
. Details.
The illustrated interaction vertex has incoming fermion momentum , incoming photon momentum , and outgoing fermion momentum . Its solid-line arrows indicate fermion flow. The photon wavy line has no fermion-flow arrow. The propagators, the vertex , momentum conservation, and the fermionic signs determine the perturbative amplitudes.
Use and . The free real scalar field has action
The canonical momentum is , and the Hamiltonian operator is obtained by the Legendre transform of the density:
Canonical quantization promotes and to Hermitian operator-valued fields and imposes the equal-time canonical commutation relations
Their Heisenberg equation of motion gives , , hence the Klein-Gordon equation .
Let and . The Hermitian field mode expansion is
The scalar field oscillator inversion extracts
and its adjoint obtained by Hermitian conjugation extracts . Substitute these expressions into the equal-time canonical commutation relation. The two mixed field-momentum terms give
For , the corresponding coefficient is a difference of those square roots and multiplies ; it vanishes because . Taking the adjoint gives . Thus these are bosonic annihilation operators and creation operators. The vacuum satisfies , and normal ordering gives , after removing the constant zero-point energy. A one-particle excitation has energy and spin zero.
The Feynman propagator is the vacuum expectation value of the time-ordered product of two field insertions. For , the field at creates a one-particle excitation from the vacuum and the field at annihilates it; the opposite time ordering reverses the roles. It is a propagation amplitude and correlation function of vacuum fluctuations, rather than a transition probability. From the oscillator expansion, only the - contraction survives, so with and ,
Here is the Heaviside step function, and changing to in the second term gives the last line.
For the Fourier transform convention , insert a positive damping factor and integrate the positive and negative half-lines separately:
The last equality is a distribution identity; the infinitesimals in the partial fractions need not have the same finite magnitude as the infinitesimal in the combined denominator. The Feynman i-epsilon prescription means that the positive-frequency pole is just below the real energy axis and the negative-frequency pole is just above it. Closing the contour integral below for , and above for , reproduces the oscillator result by the residue theorem. This prescription fixes which homogeneous solutions are added to the Green function. As an independent normalization check, has derivative jump at , so
It is the expectation-value convention for , including the numerator , that determines this source normalization.
The vacuum is a centered free Gaussian state. The Wick theorem expresses the four-field time-ordered product as the sum of all pair Wick contractions plus terms containing a normal-ordered product. The latter terms have zero vacuum expectation value. There are exactly three complete pairings, with no fermionic signs for this bosonic field. Thus the free scalar four-point function is
These formulas describe canonical quantization of a real scalar field; in particular, a real scalar field uses a single oscillator family rather than independent charged-particle and antiparticle families.
Use the Fourier transform convention . Statistical homogeneity and isotropy define the primordial bispectrum by
The Dirac delta function enforces momentum conservation; the three magnitudes describe a closed triangle. Set . For the centered quadratic Gaussian transformation, its quadratic Fourier term is
At first order in , choose the quadratic field at one of the three external positions. For the first position, Wick contractions pair the two internal fields with the two remaining external fields in two ways. The self-pairing is precisely removed by the subtracted mean. The surviving contribution is times the momentum delta. Adding the other positions gives the tree-level local-type primordial non-Gaussianity result
This expression is at leading order in . The exact quadratic map also has a loop correction to the local primordial bispectrum, from three quadratic vertices:
There is no quadratic-in- bispectrum term, because it would involve five centered Gaussian fields. A regulator may be needed for this higher-order integral. The displayed leading formula uses the Gaussian power , consistently neglecting its order- correction.
Write , so . For the cyclic term with the first field undifferentiated, insertion into the in-in formalism gives
where . The two differentiated modes contribute , cancelling the in .
Along the vacuum-selected contour, the lower boundary vanishes. The elementary integrals are
and therefore
Multiplying by , taking the real part and summing the three cyclic choices gives the curvature bispectrum from a zeta zeta-prime-squared interaction:
This matches the final normalization. The coefficient requires all six connected Wick contractions.
The calculation assumes the Gaussian Bunch-Davies vacuum, tree order in the specified cubic interaction, effectively constant and during the integral, the approximate de Sitter scale factor, and observation after the modes freeze as . The contour tilt is kept until the early boundary has been eliminated; an undamped real-axis integral cannot simply discard that boundary. The reduced Planck mass convention is the one in the supplied De Sitter curvature mode function. Other cubic interactions and nonlinear field redefinitions are outside the specified model, so this is not by itself the complete bispectrum of a general single-field action.
Distinguish the slow-roll approximation parameter from the infinitesimal positive contour regulator . In the interaction picture, the ordered unequal-time Wick contraction is
A differentiated vertex field instead supplies . These conjugates are fixed by the annihilation operators and creation operators and cannot be dropped while retaining the same contour.
Convert the interaction time integral to conformal time. Since and each cosmic-time derivative is , the integrated cubic vertex is
The in-in formalism supplies multiplying the expectation of the Hamiltonian, so its negative sign gives multiplying this vertex. At nonzero external momenta, the connected contractions join each of the three external fields to one vertex field. There are six bijections, not three. Choosing which external field meets the undifferentiated vertex gives three cyclic choices; swapping the two differentiated fields gives a further factor of two. This is the Wick-pairing multiplicity for a zeta zeta-prime-squared vertex.
For example, before the internal momenta are integrated, one cyclic contribution includes
The factors of cancel to leave one overall and the external momentum delta. Thus the properly normalized reduced expression is
The vacuum prescription for inflationary in-in integrals damps the early-time oscillations and selects the Bunch-Davies vacuum. Internal self-contractions correspond to disconnected zero-momentum tadpole terms and are excluded from this connected three-point function.
The printed intermediate expression has unconjugated modes and only three literal cyclic terms with coefficient . The conjugate form of the result above would use , together with the conjugated contour. A literal with only three terms gives half the final printed answer. The six-contraction expression above is the consistent reduction of the supplied Hamiltonian and leads to that final answer.
Write and . The inflationary scalar Fourier mode has real late-time value and . Thus the time integrand, before the factor , is
The Bunch-Davies vacuum prescription supplies damping in the past. Equivalently, use a positive regulator and then take the limit:
The real part of times this integral is . Including the six Wick contractions yields the cubic time-derivative curvature bispectrum
The resulting primordial bispectrum is a homogeneous function of degree in the wavenumbers, as expected for scale-independent background parameters.
The printed limit is not a physical sound-speed limit for these modes. The normalization and positive-frequency choice assume ; a negative value is outside the positive sound-speed convention used by these modes. The likely intended limit is , which is analyzed explicitly here rather than silently substituted for the PDF.
To compare primordial non-Gaussianity, normalize by the power spectrum, not only by the raw three-point amplitude. Here
At an equilateral bispectrum configuration, the exact normalized amplitude is
Thus gives an amplitude of order , consistent with weak non-Gaussianity in single-field slow-roll inflation. For , this vertex gives an amplitude of order one, enhanced relative to the slow-roll limit but not diverging as after power-spectrum normalization. At fixed the raw bispectrum does scale as , but has the same scaling. The often-quoted larger small-sound-speed amplitudes of more general inflationary actions require their actual interaction coefficients and other vertices; they do not follow from the lone supplied vertex. These conclusions concern its tree contribution within the stated weak-perturbation approximation.
The bispectrum shape function is
At fixed perimeter, the arithmetic-geometric mean inequality bounds this by , attained only at an equilateral bispectrum configuration. In a squeezed bispectrum configuration with , it behaves as . At a flattened bispectrum configuration it is finite, , with no boundary singularity. Thus the shape prefers equilateral triangles and suppresses squeezed triangles, with a broad finite flattened contribution. This is a shape preference, not a complete signal-to-noise calculation: actual observational weighting also depends on cosmological transfer functions, covariance and accessible triangles. If , this vertex produces no bispectrum at any configuration; if , the signed shape reverses while its absolute triangle preference is unchanged.
Use the comoving curvature perturbation mode normalization. Take to be effectively constant at leading slow-roll approximation order, with , and use the Bunch-Davies vacuum selected by the early-time contour. The regulator is distinct from the Hubble slow-roll parameter .
Let and use the Fourier transform convention . Conversion to conformal time gives
The last sign follows from substituting , which is positive for ; dropping the explicit minus sign in that substitution would reverse the final primordial bispectrum.
At the order needed by the in-in formalism, the unequal-time Wick contraction is
It uses the Gaussian quantum vacuum two-point function with the displayed operator ordering; an arbitrary classical unequal-time covariance cannot replace it. For the connected three-point function, each external field contracts with one of the three fields at the vertex. There are such Wick contractions, all equal. The spatial integral conserves total momentum and leaves one factor . The other nine pairings are disconnected tadpole terms supported on a zero external momentum; they are excluded from the connected primordial bispectrum, equivalently by subtracting the one-point function or normal ordering the vertex.
The free Gaussian odd correlator is zero. Applying the stated first-order in-in formalism therefore gives
By definition, the full connected correlator is . The assumptions are a Gaussian Bunch-Davies vacuum, the given leading cubic vertex, tree order, the late-time limit , effectively constant background parameters, and connected nonzero external modes. No symmetry factor is inserted into the given Hamiltonian.
Absorb into the free energy, so the statistical weight is . Under the Gaussian fixed point rescaling, invariance of the gradient energy gives the engineering dimension
The engineering dimensions of are respectively . Their coupling eigenvalues are , hence . The quadratic and quartic interactions are relevant operators; the sextic interaction is a marginal operator at this order.
The three steps of the momentum-shell renormalization group are:
  • Split into slow modes and fast modes , and integrate over .
  • Rescale to restore the ultraviolet cutoff to .
  • Rescale the field as to normalize the gradient energy.
Here , so increasing means flowing toward longer distances. At leading order, the fast field has a Gaussian distribution with covariance
This perturbative integration requires on the shell. By the Wick theorem, odd fast-field moments vanish and , . Therefore the first term of the cumulant expansion of a coarse-grained free energy is
This is the quartic interaction generated by a sextic interaction. Including the rescaling, the requested flow is
In spherical coordinates, . In particular, for ,
The same integration shifts the quadratic coefficient by before rescaling and adds an irrelevant constant to the free energy. Thus setting the bare quartic coupling to zero does not place the theory on the tricritical critical surface.
To calculate the sextic renormalization-group beta function to second order, let . The required cumulant expansion is
The subtraction removes disconnected contributions. The term at each vertex supplies the primitive sextic correction. The Wick contractions give
The first term contains three propagators connecting the two vertices; its factor is the number of bijections between the three fields at each vertex. The second contains a local tadpole diagram at each vertex and one connecting propagator. The primitive contribution to the free energy is therefore
Expanding the slow fields about a common point gives a negative local sextic correction proportional to
where restricts a momentum to the shell. This connected Feynman diagram has two independent loop momenta. Other Wick contractions also generate lower interactions and tadpole diagrams; they must be included or subtracted consistently when fixing the tricritical critical surface.
To extract the logarithmic tricritical sextic beta function, use normal ordering to remove local tadpoles and tune the quadratic and quartic relevant operators. The massless three-dimensional propagator is . The same three-line contraction over short separations gives
Its positive coefficient and the negative sign of the second cumulant expansion term establish the sign of the flow. Matching this logarithm to a renormalized coupling, or performing consistent iterated shell integration, gives
The precise normalization of is not needed. In a sharp momentum cutoff scheme, simply forcing all three internal momenta into one infinitesimal shell does not extract this two-loop logarithm: the shell restrictions remove its linear-in- phase space. The finite-shell cumulant and the logarithmic renormalized calculation above are distinct stages of the computation. Field normalization corrections at order enter this renormalization-group beta function only at order .
A positive, stabilizing sextic coupling is marginally irrelevant in three dimensions on the tricritical critical surface. Reversing the convention for reverses the sign of the renormalization-group beta function. A negative sextic coupling without higher stabilizing powers makes the potential unbounded; moreover, the untuned bare choice generally flows away through its generated relevant operator.
Assume and take . The free Gaussian integral gives , and the normalized free Gaussian measure has covariance . Expanding only the interaction exponential gives the asymptotic expansion
In this zero-dimensional scalar field theory, the path integral has become an ordinary integral, but its combinatorics are precisely those of sextic scalar field theory.
The free generating functional is . Differentiating it proves Wick theorem: odd moments vanish, while each even moment is the sum over pairings of its factors. Each Wick contraction contributes , so
Thus the Feynman rules are a quantum field theory propagator for each internal line and a factor for each six-valent interaction vertex. The factorials and remove vertex and half-edge labels; the remaining weight is , where is the Feynman-diagram symmetry factor, the order of the automorphism group of the resulting diagram, including its half-edge symmetries. A tadpole diagram has an additional interchange symmetry of the two ends of its loop.
There is one empty Vacuum Feynman diagram, contributing . At one interaction vertex, the six half-edges form three loops. Its Feynman-diagram symmetry factor is , so its contribution is .
At two interaction vertices let count the lines joining them. Each interaction vertex has self-loops, so can only be . These four possibilities exhaust all Vacuum Feynman diagrams at this order. Their Feynman-diagram symmetry factors are
Here the leading exchanges the two interaction vertices, permutes the joining lines, and the remaining factors permute and reverse the self-loops. The graph is disconnected and must be included in ; only a connected generating functional would discard it.
Figure 1. . The empty diagram, the one-interaction vertex diagram, and the four two-interaction vertex diagrams, with their Feynman-diagram symmetry factors. Details.
Consequently,
Indeed , independently agreeing with from Wick theorem.
This is an asymptotic expansion, rather than a convergent perturbation series: the coefficient of contains and grows too rapidly for a nonzero radius of convergence. For any fixed truncation order, the Taylor expansion remainder bound for on , followed by the finite Gaussian moment integral, proves the stated remainder estimate. For negative real the original integral diverges.
Use . For nonzero external momenta, the quadratic term in local-type primordial non-Gaussianity is
Insert it in one of the three external fields. Wick theorem supplies two connected Wick contractions at each insertion, whereas the mean subtraction removes the disconnected zero-mode contribution. Thus the leading primordial bispectrum is
Linear propagation by the cosmological Poisson equation gives and multiplies the primordial bispectrum by . Defining the matter three-point function by its momentum-conserving Dirac delta function times , the primordial contribution to the matter bispectrum is
The nonlinear gravitational contribution from standard perturbation theory in cosmology is excluded here.
In a squeezed bispectrum configuration, , so
For a nearly scale-invariant potential, , so the second term is subleading and
Relative to the product of matter power spectra, the squeezed response is enhanced by . Its sign is the sign of . This is the three-point counterpart of the conditional short-scale variance modulation by local non-Gaussianity.
Use signed one-dimensional external momenta , with nonzero . Let be the linear cosmological density power spectrum at the time of evaluation, normalized by . Using absorbs the factor multiplying a product of three initial power spectra. All kernels below are symmetrized one-dimensional cosmological density kernels.
The connected B222 contribution to the one-loop matter bispectrum has a triangular Feynman diagram: each second-order external field has two Gaussian inputs, joined pairwise to the other two vertices. The connected B411 contribution to the one-loop matter bispectrum has a fourth-order vertex joined to both linear external fields, with its remaining two inputs contracted into a loop at that vertex. External stubs indicate the measured momenta; blue internal lines represent linear power spectra.
Figure 1.
One-loop triangle and fourth-order-vertex diagrams
. The two connected one-loop topologies. Vertex labels are perturbative orders, not numbers of external measured fields. The diagram must be summed over the three choices of the fourth-order field. Details.
There are connected Wick contractions in the triangle, giving
For a fixed fourth-order external field, attaching the two labelled linear fields gives choices; the remaining pair contracts uniquely. Therefore
These are contributions to the reduced connected one-loop matter bispectrum, with its external momentum-conserving Dirac delta function removed. Disconnected contractions have a zero external momentum and are excluded.
For the ultraviolet behaviour, the three denominators multiply to a negative square. In fact
Thus for and a smoothly varying high-momentum spectrum,
Each second-order vertex exhibits the ultraviolet softness of the second-order density kernel, so this term contains six powers of external momentum.
The fourth-order kernel is even simpler:
With a hard-loop cutoff , define
The B411 contribution to the one-loop matter bispectrum from this range is exactly
For fixed momentum ratios, it has two external derivative powers multiplying two long-mode power spectra, rather than the six-derivative stochastic structure of . It is the leading deterministic UV-sensitive contribution for external modes below the nonlinear wavenumber. This is a comparison of derivative orders and generic cutoff sensitivity; an arbitrary specially chosen spectrum or vanishing shape can change their numerical ranking. A convergent integral can still depend on nonperturbative short scales. For a high- power law , the integral diverges for , whereas the integral diverges only for , with logarithmic divergences at the thresholds.
At the field level, there are six ways to contract a hard pair within . Comparing with gives
The appropriate second-order density Laplacian counterterm is therefore
Indeed its contribution with two linear fields is , which cancels the displayed hard-loop term. The counterterm sign follows from . Its finite coefficient must be matched to short-scale dynamics, as in the effective field theory of large-scale structure. A term proportional to similarly renormalizes a linear response, but a purely linear insertion cannot by itself cancel this shape, since an odd Gaussian three-point function vanishes.
For bosonic fields, time ordering places operators with later time arguments to the left:
Normal ordering places all creation operators to the left of all annihilation operators and is denoted by colons. A Wick contraction is
Wick theorem states
where each sum runs over inequivalent disjoint pairings and contracted fields are replaced by their Feynman propagator.
A momentum-shell renormalization group step has three parts. First split the field into slow and fast Fourier modes, , and integrate over the shell . Second rescale , or equivalently , to restore the ultraviolet cutoff to . Third rescale the field so that the coefficient of returns to its chosen normalization. The resulting free energy has the same operator expansion but new couplings; iteration traces a renormalization-group flow in coupling space.
For the first step only, write and average over the fast modes of the Gaussian field theory. The cumulant expansion gives
Here
At order , the connected contraction of two vertices gives the low-momentum two-point term. Since ,
Expanding at small external momentum and matching yields
The first cumulant also produces a term linear in ; it is removed by fixing the one-point function, or equivalently by a field redefinition, and does not change the displayed one-particle-irreducible correlation function correction to the mass.
The leading vertex correction is order . Taking from each of three vertices, the connected Wick contractions form a triangle. There are eight contractions, so the third cumulant contributes times the triangle integral. At zero external momentum,
For nonzero external momenta the three propagators carry the corresponding shifted loop momenta, with every internal line restricted to the fast shell.
The linear density contrast is Gaussian, so its cubic moment vanishes. The leading contribution is
Two connected Wick contractions give
The third pairing vanishes because . Isotropy makes and , so the angular average of the kernel is
Since to leading order, the unsmoothed matter-density reduced skewness is
This assumes finite unsmoothed variance; inserting a smoothing window generally changes .
Use the one-loop matter power spectrum convention in which is one ordering of . Then
with the P22 contribution to the one-loop matter power spectrum
and the P13 contribution to the one-loop matter power spectrum
The factors two and three count Wick contractions. The mixed contains an odd number of zero-mean Gaussian fields, so .
Figure 1.
One-loop contributions to the matter power spectrum
. The two one-loop power-spectrum topologies. Solid lines attach external density fields to kernels; dashed lines pair linear fields and carry a linear power spectrum. The P13 topology has two external orderings. Details.
For , the ultraviolet softness of the second-order density kernel gives , so
The third-order kernel has , giving
These integrals expose the sensitivity to unresolved short-scale dynamics. The effective sound-speed counterterm in large-scale structure has exactly the required deterministic shape:
Here absorbs the time and normalization conventions and has dimensions of length squared. A stochastic correction begins at and can absorb the corresponding short-scale sensitivity of .
For symmetrized standard perturbation theory density kernels, the two one-loop contractions are
and
The factors and count the relevant Wick contractions. Since the cross-correlation occurs in both orders, the one-loop matter power spectrum is
The first-order in-in formalism formula at observation time is
Fourier transforming the three derivatives gives
where . Because the four species are distinct, Wick contraction pairs each vertex field with the external field of the same species and introduces no permutation factor. If
then
Combining this with part i gives the requested time integral:
The factor is a pseudoscalar, so the resulting primordial trispectrum is parity odd and purely imaginary in this momentum-space convention.