We derive a priori bounds for the $$\Phi ^4$$
Φ
4
equation in the full sub-critical regime using Hairer’s theory of regularity structures. The equation is formally given by "Equation missing"where the term $$+\infty \phi $$
+
∞
ϕ
represents infinite terms that have to be removed in a renormalisation procedure. We emulate fractional dimensions $$d<4$$
d
<
4
by adjusting the regularity of the noise term $$\xi $$
ξ
, choosing $$\xi \in C^{-3+\delta }$$
ξ
∈
C
-
3
+
δ
. Our main result states that if $$\phi $$
ϕ
satisfies this equation on a space–time cylinder $$D= (0,1) \times \{ |x| \leqslant 1 \}$$
D
=
(
0
,
1
)
×
{
|
x
|
⩽
1
}
, then away from the boundary $$\partial D$$
∂
D
the solution $$\phi $$
ϕ
can be bounded in terms of a finite number of explicit polynomial expressions in $$\xi $$
ξ
. The bound holds uniformly over all possible choices of boundary data for $$\phi $$
ϕ
and thus relies crucially on the super-linear damping effect of the non-linear term $$-\phi ^3$$
-
ϕ
3
. A key part of our analysis consists of an appropriate re-formulation of the theory of regularity structures in the specific context of (*), which allows us to couple the small scale control one obtains from this theory with a suitable large scale argument. Along the way we make several new observations and simplifications: we reduce the number of objects required with respect to Hairer’s work. Instead of a model $$(\Pi _x)_x$$
(
Π
x
)
x
and the family of translation operators $$(\Gamma _{x,y})_{x,y}$$
(
Γ
x
,
y
)
x
,
y
we work with just a single object $$(\mathbb {X}_{x, y})$$
(
X
x
,
y
)
which acts on itself for translations, very much in the spirit of Gubinelli’s theory of branched rough paths. Furthermore, we show that in the specific context of (*) the hierarchy of continuity conditions which constitute Hairer’s definition of a modelled distribution can be reduced to the single continuity condition on the “coefficient on the constant level”.