# Is the Standard model an effective field theory (EFT)?

I've seen both positive and negative answers to this question, though most part of the community seem to agree it can be said it is an EFT up to the electroweak scale. My question is: What are the main arguments from each side? References are welcome too.

• Hi Martin, imo this question is obviously important, but I think it may judged as both too broad and too personal opinion based. Sorry but I VTC on that basis. it can be said it is an EFT up to the electroweak scale It's basically all we have, what else can be said except personal opinions on where it's headed and how we use limited resources to best improve on it. – user108787 Nov 2 '16 at 23:47
• How do you define a "not-effective field theory", given our current inability to construct rigorously defined non-effective theories? – ACuriousMind Nov 3 '16 at 0:09
• I am with ACuriousMind. According to the traditional understanding EFT is a perturbative QFT that uses cut off at high energies and renormalization to produce finite answers. SM is obviously that. Since you expect arguments "from each side" you must mean something else by "EFT". What is it? – Conifold Nov 3 '16 at 0:35
• I don't agree. Lattice QFTs are definitely effective. The gold standard, really. – user1504 Nov 3 '16 at 0:36
• @user1504 I am not sure we use "effective" the same way, in this context it just means "not fundamental", "phenomenological": "An effective field theory includes the appropriate degrees of freedom to describe physical phenomena occurring at a chosen length scale or energy scale, while ignoring substructure and degrees of freedom at shorter distances (or, equivalently, at higher energies)" says Wikipedia on EFT. – Conifold Nov 3 '16 at 0:44

But this isn't proof: the perturbative approximation becomes unreliable as one approaches the region where the Landau pole would happen. Numerical computation with lattice $\phi^4$ theory also suggests that there's a Landau pole. However, those calculations aren't under analytic control; we don't know that we're not missing something.