Renormalization of the nonlinear image model with θ-term Original Research Article

The renormalization of the topological term in the two-dimensional nonlinear image model is studied by means of the Functional Renormalization Group. By considering the topological charge as a limit of a more general operator, it is shown that a finite multiplicative renormalization occurs in the extreme infrared. In order to compute the effects of the zero modes, a specific representation of the Clifford algebra is developed which allows to reformulate the bosonic problem in terms of Dirac operators and to employ the index theorem.