Field Theory – Notation and Terminology Questions from Schwartz’ QFT Book

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I am finding some of the notation confusing in Chapter 3 on Classical Field Theory in Schwartz' QFT book a bit confusing.

  1. First off, on page 34 he defines a translation of a field to first order as
    $$\phi(x) \rightarrow \phi(x+\xi) = \phi(x) +\xi^{\nu}\partial_v \phi(x)+…\tag{3.29}$$
    So good so far, but then he writes
    $$\frac{\delta\phi}{\delta \xi^{\nu}} = \partial_v\phi.\tag{3.30}$$
    To me that looks like an ordinary partial derivative, so I don't get why he writes it as $\frac{\delta\phi}{\delta \xi^{\nu}}$ instead of $\frac{\partial\phi}{\partial \xi^{\nu}}$.

  2. My second question is that he later writes

    $$\frac{\delta\mathscr{L}}{\delta \xi^{\nu}} = \partial_{\nu}\mathscr{L}.\tag{3.31}$$
    Since this is a total derivative,
    $$ \delta S = \int d^4x\delta\mathscr{L}=\xi^{\nu}\int d^4x\partial_{\nu}\mathscr{L}=0.$$

    I wouldn't interpret $\partial_{\nu}\mathscr{L}$ as a total derivative. Wouldn't that typically be the total divergence $d_{_\nu}\mathscr{L}$?

He seems to use the term loosely.

Best Answer

  1. Yes. OP is right. The LHS of eq. (3.30) is supposed to be a partial derivative.

  2. Yes. OP is right. The RHS of eq. (3.31) is supposed to be a total derivative.

See also this related Phys.SE post.