We discuss the 4pt function of the critical 3d Ising model, extracted from recent conformal bootstrap results. We focus on the non-gaussianity Q - the ratio of the 4pt function to its gaussian part given by three Wick contractions. This ratio reveals significant non-gaussianity of the critical fluctuations. The bootstrap results are consistent with a rigorous inequality due to Lebowitz and Aizenman, which limits Q to lie between 1/3 and 1.
We perform Monte-Carlo simulations of the three-dimensional Ising model at the critical temperature and zero magnetic field. We simulate the system in a ball with free boundary conditions on the two dimensional spherical boundary. Our results for one and two point functions in this geometry are consistent with the predictions from the conjectured conformal symmetry of the critical Ising model.
How can a renormalization group fixed point be scale invariant without being conformal? Polchinski (1988) showed that this may happen if the theory contains a virial current -- a non-conserved vector operator of dimension exactly $(d-1)$, whose divergence expresses the trace of the stress tensor. We point out that this scenario can be probed via lattice Monte Carlo simulations, using the critical 3d Ising model as an example. Our results put a lower bound $Delta_V>5.0$ on the scaling dimension of the lowest virial current candidate $V$, well above 2 expected for the true virial current. This implies that the critical 3d Ising model has no virial current, providing a structural explanation for the conformal invariance of the model.
We investigate the properties of the twist line defect in the critical 3d Ising model using Monte Carlo simulations. In this model the twist line defect is the boundary of a surface of frustrated links or, in a dual description, the Wilson line of the Z2 gauge theory. We test the hypothesis that the twist line defect flows to a conformal line defect at criticality and evaluate numerically the low-lying spectrum of anomalous dimensions of the local operators which live on the defect as well as mixed correlation functions of local operators in the bulk and on the defect.
We estimate thermal one-point functions in the 3d Ising CFT using the operator product expansion (OPE) and the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) condition. Several operator dimensions and OPE coefficients of the theory are known from the numerical bootstrap for flat-space four-point functions. Taking this data as input, we use a thermal Lorentzian inversion formula to compute thermal one-point coefficients of the first few Regge trajectories in terms of a small number of unknown parameters. We approximately determine the unknown parameters by imposing the KMS condition on the two-point functions $langle sigmasigma rangle$ and $langle epsilonepsilon rangle$. As a result, we estimate the one-point functions of the lowest-dimension $mathbb Z_2$-even scalar $epsilon$ and the stress-energy tensor $T_{mu u}$. Our result for $langle sigmasigma rangle$ at finite-temperature agrees with Monte-Carlo simulations within a few percent, inside the radius of convergence of the OPE.
We study the massless flows described by the staircase model introduced by Al.B. Zamolodchikov through the analytic continuation of the sinh-Gordon S-matrix, focusing on the renormalisation group flow from the tricritical to the critical Ising model. We show that the properly defined roaming limits of certain sinh-Gordon form factors are identical to the form factors of the order and disorder operators for the massless flow. As a by-product, we also construct form factors for a semi-local field in the sinh-Gordon model, which can be associated with the twist field in the ultraviolet limiting free massless bosonic theory.