Abstract
In this paper we discuss the finiteness constraint imposed by renormalizability on variational approximations in quantum field theories. After a review of the philosophy to be followed, an illustration of the problem in a simple superrenormalizable model is presented. To obtain a well-defined variational approximation for this model, we propose a first-order formalism augmented by the inclusion of redundant degrees of freedom. As an example we calculate a well-defined (i.e., regulator-independent) variational approximant to the effective potential.

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