Wick Rotation – Insights from Peskin and Schroeder’s QFT

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I know there are many similar analysis about this topic, like here, here, many of them are answered by Qmechanic, excellent answer!

I have checked most of these posts, but I still don't clearly understand something. So I want to organize this question in my way. If there is a duplicate, I apologize.

All of my following statements and conventions based on Peskin and Schroeder's QFT book.

  1. Begin with their book on page 192, the book gives a figure about wick rotation, and defined the Euclidean 4-momentum variable $\ell_E$ in (6.48)
    $$\ell^0 \equiv i \ell_E^0 ; \qquad \vec{\ell}=\vec{\ell}_E. \tag{6.48}$$

    enter image description here

    My first question is, why does $\ell^0 \equiv i \ell_E^0$ imply this counterclockwise rotation. In my understanding, $\ell_E^0$ is the vertical line in the figure, goes from bottom to the top. $\ell^0$ is the horizontal line from left to right. And $\ell_E^0=-i\ell^0$ implies that this rotation is a clockwise rotation from $II$ and $IV$'s region, which cross the poles.

  2. On book page 293, the book defined the Wick rotation of time coordinate:
    $$t\rightarrow -ix^0. \tag{9.44} $$
    This seems reasonable to me.

  3. If we want to transfer the two-point correlation function from Minkowski space to Euclidean space, which corresponds to eq.(2.59) and (9.48)
    $$D_F(x-y) \equiv \int \frac{d^4 p}{(2 \pi)^4} \frac{i}{p^2-m^2+i \epsilon} e^{-i p \cdot(x-y)}, \tag{2.59}$$
    $$\left\langle\phi\left(x_{E 1}\right) \phi\left(x_{E 2}\right)\right\rangle=\int \frac{d^4 k_E}{(2 \pi)^4} \frac{e^{i k_E \cdot\left(x_{E 1}-x_{E 2}\right)}}{k_E^2+m^2}. \tag{9.48} $$
    I have tried to use eq.(6.48) and (9.44) to derive out (9.48) from (2.59), but I find they have a minus sign difference between the time component, in other words, I got:
    $$\left\langle\phi\left(x_{E 1}\right) \phi\left(x_{E 2}\right)\right\rangle=\int \frac{d^4 k_E}{(2 \pi)^4} \frac{e^{-i k_E^0 \cdot\left(x_{E 1}^0-x_{E 2}^0\right) + i \mathbf{k_E}\cdot \left(\mathbf{x_{E 1}-x_{E 2}}\right)}}{k_E^2+m^2}. $$
    So which is correct?

The above three points are my confusion about Wick rotation, could you (Qmechanic) and other people, please elaborate more about this, thanks!

Best Answer

Ref. 1 uses the Minkowski signature convention $(+,-,-,-)$, which is unnatural from the perspective of Wick rotation, cf. e.g. my Phys.SE answer here.

  1. E.g. eq. (6.48) then seems to indicate that the Euclidean signature in Ref. 1. is $(-,-,-,-)$. The continuous Wick rotation of the integration contour in quadrant I & III of Fig. 6.1 in Ref. 1 can be viewed as $$\begin{align} \ell^0(\theta)~=~&e^{i\theta}\ell^0_E, \qquad \theta~\in~[0,\frac{\pi}{2}], \qquad \ell^0_E~\in~\mathbb{R},\cr \ell^0(\theta\!=\!0)~=~&\ell^0_E, \qquad \ell^0(\theta\!=\!\frac{\pi}{2})~=~i\ell^0_E=\ell^0_M.\end{align}\tag{6.48}$$ Incidentally, this Wick rotation (6.48) may also be understood in the opposite signature convention, cf. eq. (J) in my Phys.SE answer here. The Wick rotation (6.48) in momentum space works as long as we don't also consider the Wick rotation in spacetime.

  2. The arrow in the Wick rotation (9.44) in spacetime should be understood as $$ t_M~=~-i x^0_E, \tag{9.44}$$ cf. my Phys.SE answer here.

  3. OP's third question involves a double-Wick-rotation in both spacetime and momentum space, so eq. (6.48) does no longer apply, as also shown by OP's own calculations.

    • Firstly, the Feynman propagator (2.59) in Ref. (1) corresponds (up to a phase factor normalization) to $$ \Delta(x_M\!-\!x^{\prime}_M)~=~ \int\!\frac{d^4 k_{\bullet M}}{(2\pi)^4} \frac{e^{i k_M(x_M-x^{\prime}_M)}}{k^2_M+m^2/\hbar^2 -i\epsilon} \tag{8.11} $$ in Ref. 2 with the opposite signature convention $(-,+,+,+)$.

    • Secondly, eq. (8.11) in Ref. 2 is related to the Euclidian 2-point function (9.48) in Ref. 1 (up to a phase factor normalization), cf. the first part of my Phys.SE answer here, which relies on a compatible Wick rotation convention for both spacetime and momentum space.

References:

  1. M.E. Peskin & D.V. Schroeder, An Intro to QFT.

  2. M. Srednicki, QFT, 2007; Chapter 71. A prepublication draft PDF file is available here.

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