Anatomy of the simplest renormalon

Abstract: Perhaps the simplest IR renormalon occurs in the ground state energy of a superrenormalizable model, the scalar $O(N)$ theory in two dimensions with a quartic potential and negative squared mass. We show that this renormalon, found previously in perturbation theory at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the $1/N$ expansion, gives indeed the correct asymptotic expansion of the exact large $N$ solution of the model, and we determine explicitly the complete trans-series of non-perturbative corrections to the perturbative result. We also use this framework to study the $O(N)$-invariant two-point function of the scalar field. As expected, it is IR finite in perturbation theory, but it is afflicted as well with an IR renormalon singularity and is not Borel summable. The pole mass is purely non-perturbative and its trans-series can be also fully determined at NLO in $1/N$