Functional renormalization group at large N for disordered systems.

We introduce a method, based on an exact calculation of the effective action at large N, to bridge the gap between mean-field theory and renormalization in complex systems. We apply it to a d-dimensional manifold in a random potential for large embedding space dimension N. This yields a functional renormalization group equation valid for any d, which contains both the O(epsilon=4-d) results of Balents-Fisher and some of the nontrivial results of the Mezard-Parisi solution, thus shedding light on both. Corrections are computed at order O(1/N). Applications to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang growth model, random field, and mode coupling in glasses are mentioned.