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In chapter 12.1 from Peskin & Schroeder we see how we can integrate out the high momenta of our theory. Here we consider a $\phi^4$ theory for which we can seperate high and low momenta modes as follows $$ S = \int{d^dx\left( \frac{1}{2}(\partial_\mu\hat{\phi})^2+\frac{1}{2}m^2\hat{\phi}^2+\lambda\left(\frac{1}{6}\phi^3\hat{\phi}+\frac{1}{4}\phi^2\hat{\phi}^2+\frac{1}{6}\phi\hat{\phi}^3+\frac{1}{4!}\hat{\phi}^4\right)\right)} $$

where the above is only the part of the action which depends on the high momenta denoted by $\hat{\phi}$. My question is on equation (12.17) which states that when we take a Taylor expansion of the interaction terms (with coefficient $\lambda$) we will have a term which is of the form $$ -\frac{1}{4}\int{d^dx\eta\phi^2(\partial_\mu\phi)^2} $$ where $\eta$ is the factor we get when we integrate the high momenta $\hat{\phi}$ out. From the given action I don't understand how one can have $\partial_\mu\phi$ in their Feynman diagrams.

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  • $\begingroup$ Related post by OP: physics.stackexchange.com/q/693565/2451 $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic
    Commented Feb 10, 2022 at 10:51
  • $\begingroup$ True, on my previous question, my problem was with the propagator, which now I believe I understand. It's just the derivation made in chapter 9.2 where we use the functional derivtive with a source term $J$ which we set to zero afterwards. My problem here is that there is this term $\partial_\mu\phi$ which to me can only come from the part of the Lagrangian with low momenta, but then that would be zero in our integration over high momenta. So, all in all, I'm confused $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 10, 2022 at 10:57
  • $\begingroup$ What did you get when you performed the path integral over the $\hat{\phi}$ fields? $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 14, 2022 at 17:20

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