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Final edit: I think I pretty much understand now (touch wood)! But there's one thing I don't get. What's the physical reason for expecting the correlation functions to be independent of the cutoff? I.e. why couldn't we just plump for one "master Lagrangian" at the Planck scale and only do our integration up to that point? Perhaps it has something to do with low energy experiments not being influenced by Planck scale physics...

I'll award the bounty to anyone who can explain this final conundrum! Cheers!

$$***$$

Apologies if this question is too philosophical and vague! I've been thinking about QFTs and continuum mechanics, and reading about their interpretation as effective theories. In these theories we have natural cutoffs at high momentum (small scales). We make the assumption ($\star$) that the large scale physics is decoupled from the small-scale. Therefore we hope that our predictions are independent of the cutoff (after some renormalization if necessary).

Why is the assumption ($\star$) so reasonable? I guess it seems observationally correct, which is powerful empirical evidence. But could it not be the case that the small scale physics had ramifications for larger scale observations? In other words, would it be reasonable to expect that the predictions of a TOE might depend on some (Planck scale) cutoff?

This question may be completely trivial, or simply ridiculous. Sorry if so! I'm just trying to get a real feel for the landscape.

Edit: I'd like to understand this physically from the purely QFT perspective, without resorting to analogy with statistical physics. It might help if I rephrase my question as follows.

In the Wilsonian treatment of renormalization we get a flow of Lagrangians as the energy scale $\Lambda$ changes. For a renormalizable theory we assume that there's a bare Lagrangian independent of $\Lambda$ in the limit $\Lambda \to \infty$. We calculate with this quantity, by splitting it into physical terms and counterterms. I think these counterterms come from moving down the group flow, but I'm not quite sure...

But why do we care about (and calculate with) the bare Lagrangian, rather than one at some prescribed (high) energy scale (say the Planck scale)? I don't really understand the point of there existing a $\Lambda\to \infty$ limit.

Final edit: I think I pretty much understand now (touch wood)! But there's one thing I don't get. What's the physical reason for expecting the correlation functions to be independent of the cutoff? I.e. why couldn't we just plump for one "master Lagrangian" at the Planck scale and only do our integration up to that point?

• Perhaps it has something to do with low energy experiments not being influenced by Planck scale physics.
• Maybe it's because there isn't any fundamental scale, i.e. that $\Lambda$ must be arbitrary in a QFT approximation, for some reason.

I'll award the bounty to anyone who can explain this final conundrum! Cheers!

$$***$$

Apologies if this question is too philosophical and vague! I've been thinking about QFTs and continuum mechanics, and reading about their interpretation as effective theories. In these theories we have natural cutoffs at high momentum (small scales). We make the assumption ($\star$) that the large scale physics is decoupled from the small-scale. Therefore we hope that our predictions are independent of the cutoff (after some renormalization if necessary).

Why is the assumption ($\star$) so reasonable? I guess it seems observationally correct, which is powerful empirical evidence. But could it not be the case that the small scale physics had ramifications for larger scale observations? In other words, would it be reasonable to expect that the predictions of a TOE might depend on some (Planck scale) cutoff?

This question may be completely trivial, or simply ridiculous. Sorry if so! I'm just trying to get a real feel for the landscape.

Edit: I'd like to understand this physically from the purely QFT perspective, without resorting to analogy with statistical physics. It might help if I rephrase my question as follows.

In the Wilsonian treatment of renormalization we get a flow of Lagrangians as the energy scale $\Lambda$ changes. For a renormalizable theory we assume that there's a bare Lagrangian independent of $\Lambda$ in the limit $\Lambda \to \infty$. We calculate with this quantity, by splitting it into physical terms and counterterms. I think these counterterms come from moving down the group flow, but I'm not quite sure...

But why do we care about (and calculate with) the bare Lagrangian, rather than one at some prescribed (high) energy scale (say the Planck scale)? I don't really understand the point of there existing a $\Lambda\to \infty$ limit.

Apologies if this question is too philosophical and vague! I've been thinking about QFTs and continuum mechanics, and reading about their interpretation as effective theories. In these theories we have natural cutoffs at high momentum (small scales). We make the assumption ($\star$) that the large scale physics is decoupled from the small-scale. Therefore we hope that our predictions are independent of the cutoff (after some renormalization if necessary).

Why is the assumption ($\star$) so reasonable? I guess it seems observationally correct, which is powerful empirical evidence. But could it not be the case that the small scale physics had ramifications for larger scale observations? In other words, would it be reasonable to expect that the predictions of a TOE might depend on some (Planck scale) cutoff?

This question may be completely trivial, or simply ridiculous. Sorry if so! I'm just trying to get a real feel for the landscape.

Edit: I'd like to understand this physically from the purely QFT perspective, without resorting to analogy with statistical physics. It might help if I rephrase my question as follows.

In the Wilsonian treatment of renormalization we get a flow of Lagrangians as the energy scale $\Lambda$ changes. For a renormalizable theory we assume that there's a bare Lagrangian independent of $\Lambda$ in the limit $\Lambda \to \infty$. We calculate with this quantity, by splitting it into physical terms and counterterms. I think these counterterms come from moving down the group flow, but I'm not quite sure...

But why do we care about (and calculate with) the bare Lagrangian, rather than one at some prescribed (high) energy scale (say the Planck scale)? I don't really understand the point of there existing a $\Lambda\to \infty$ limit.

Final edit: I think I pretty much understand now (touch wood)! But there's one thing I don't get. What's the physical reason for expecting the correlation functions to be independent of the cutoff? I.e. why couldn't we just plump for one "master Lagrangian" at the Planck scale and only do our integration up to that point? Perhaps it has something to do with low energy experiments not being influenced by Planck scale physics...

I'll award the bounty to anyone who can explain this final conundrum! Cheers!

Final edit: I think I pretty much understand now (touch wood)! But there's one thing I don't get. What's the physical reason for expecting the correlation functions to be independent of the cutoff? I.e. why couldn't we just plump for one "master Lagrangian" at the Planck scale and only do our integration up to that point? Perhaps it has something to do with low energy experiments not being influenced by Planck scale physics...

I'll award the bounty to anyone who can explain this final conundrum! Cheers!

$$***$$

Apologies if this question is too philosophical and vague! I've been thinking about QFTs and continuum mechanics, and reading about their interpretation as effective theories. In these theories we have natural cutoffs at high momentum (small scales). We make the assumption ($\star$) that the large scale physics is decoupled from the small-scale. Therefore we hope that our predictions are independent of the cutoff (after some renormalization if necessary).

Why is the assumption ($\star$) so reasonable? I guess it seems observationally correct, which is powerful empirical evidence. But could it not be the case that the small scale physics had ramifications for larger scale observations? In other words, would it be reasonable to expect that the predictions of a TOE might depend on some (Planck scale) cutoff?

This question may be completely trivial, or simply ridiculous. Sorry if so! I'm just trying to get a real feel for the landscape.

Edit: I'd like to understand this physically from the purely QFT perspective, without resorting to analogy with statistical physics. It might help if I rephrase my question as follows.

In the Wilsonian treatment of renormalization we get a flow of Lagrangians as the energy scale $\Lambda$ changes. For a renormalizable theory we assume that there's a bare Lagrangian independent of $\Lambda$ in the limit $\Lambda \to \infty$. We calculate with this quantity, by splitting it into physical terms and counterterms. I think these counterterms come from moving down the group flow, but I'm not quite sure...

But why do we care about (and calculate with) the bare Lagrangian, rather than one at some prescribed (high) energy scale (say the Planck scale)? I don't really understand the point of there existing a $\Lambda\to \infty$ limit.

Apologies if this question is too philosophical and vague! I've been thinking about QFTs and continuum mechanics, and reading about their interpretation as effective theories. In these theories we have natural cutoffs at high momentum (small scales). We make the assumption ($\star$) that the large scale physics is decoupled from the small-scale. Therefore we hope that our predictions are independent of the cutoff (after some renormalization if necessary).

Why is the assumption ($\star$) so reasonable? I guess it seems observationally correct, which is powerful empirical evidence. But could it not be the case that the small scale physics had ramifications for larger scale observations? In other words, would it be reasonable to expect that the predictions of a TOE might depend on some (Planck scale) cutoff?

This question may be completely trivial, or simply ridiculous. Sorry if so! I'm just trying to get a real feel for the landscape.

Edit: I'd like to understand this physically from the purely QFT perspective, without resorting to analogy with statistical physics. It might help if I rephrase my question as follows.

In the Wilsonian treatment of renormalization we get a flow of Lagrangians as the energy scale $\Lambda$ changes. For a renormalizable theory we assume that there's a bare Lagrangian independent of $\Lambda$ in the limit $\Lambda \to \infty$. We calculate with this quantity, by splitting it into physical terms and counterterms. I think these counterterms come from moving down the group flow, but I'm not quite sure...

But why do we care about (and calculate with) the bare Lagrangian, rather than one at some prescribed (high) energy scale (say the Planck scale)? I don't really understand the point of there existing a $\Lambda\to \infty$ limit.

Final edit: I think I pretty much understand now (touch wood)! But there's one thing I don't get. What's the physical reason for expecting the results to be independent of the cutoff? I.e. why couldn't we just plump for one "master Lagrangian" at the Planck scale and only do our integration up to that point? Perhaps it has something to do with low energy experiments not being influenced by Planck scale physics...

I'll award the bounty to anyone who can explain this final conundrum! Cheers!

Apologies if this question is too philosophical and vague! I've been thinking about QFTs and continuum mechanics, and reading about their interpretation as effective theories. In these theories we have natural cutoffs at high momentum (small scales). We make the assumption ($\star$) that the large scale physics is decoupled from the small-scale. Therefore we hope that our predictions are independent of the cutoff (after some renormalization if necessary).

Why is the assumption ($\star$) so reasonable? I guess it seems observationally correct, which is powerful empirical evidence. But could it not be the case that the small scale physics had ramifications for larger scale observations? In other words, would it be reasonable to expect that the predictions of a TOE might depend on some (Planck scale) cutoff?

This question may be completely trivial, or simply ridiculous. Sorry if so! I'm just trying to get a real feel for the landscape.

Edit: I'd like to understand this physically from the purely QFT perspective, without resorting to analogy with statistical physics. It might help if I rephrase my question as follows.

In the Wilsonian treatment of renormalization we get a flow of Lagrangians as the energy scale $\Lambda$ changes. For a renormalizable theory we assume that there's a bare Lagrangian independent of $\Lambda$ in the limit $\Lambda \to \infty$. We calculate with this quantity, by splitting it into physical terms and counterterms. I think these counterterms come from moving down the group flow, but I'm not quite sure...

But why do we care about (and calculate with) the bare Lagrangian, rather than one at some prescribed (high) energy scale (say the Planck scale)? I don't really understand the point of there existing a $\Lambda\to \infty$ limit.

Final edit: I think I pretty much understand now (touch wood)! But there's one thing I don't get. What's the physical reason for expecting the correlation functions to be independent of the cutoff? I.e. why couldn't we just plump for one "master Lagrangian" at the Planck scale and only do our integration up to that point? Perhaps it has something to do with low energy experiments not being influenced by Planck scale physics...

I'll award the bounty to anyone who can explain this final conundrum! Cheers!