No Arabic abstract
Logarithmic conformal field theories are based on vertex algebras with non-semisimple representation categories. While examples of such theories have been known for more than 25 years, some crucial aspects of local logarithmic CFTs have been understood only recently, with the help of a description of conformal blocks by modular functors. We present some of these results, both about bulk fields and about boundary fields and boundary states. We also describe some recent progress towards a derived modular functor. This is a summary of work with Terry Gannon, Simon Lentner, Svea Mierach, Gregor Schaumann and Yorck Sommerhauser.
We show how logarithmic terms may arise in the correlators of fields which belong to the representation of the Schrodinger-Virasoro algebra (SV) or the affine Galilean Conformal Algebra (GCA). We show that in GCA, only scaling operator can have a Jordanian form and rapidity can not. We observe that in both algebras logarithmic dependence appears along the time direction alone.
The periodic sl(2|1) alternating spin chain encodes (some of) the properties of hulls of percolation clusters, and is described in the continuum limit by a logarithmic conformal field theory (LCFT) at central charge c=0. This theory corresponds to the strong coupling regime of a sigma model on the complex projective superspace $mathbb{CP}^{1|1} = mathrm{U}(2|1) / (mathrm{U}(1) times mathrm{U}(1|1))$, and the spectrum of critical exponents can be obtained exactly. In this paper we push the analysis further, and determine the main representation theoretic (logarithmic) features of this continuum limit by extending to the periodic case the approach of [N. Read and H. Saleur, Nucl. Phys. B 777 316 (2007)]. We first focus on determining the representation theory of the finite size spin chain with respect to the algebra of local energy densities provided by a representation of the affine Temperley-Lieb algebra at fugacity one. We then analyze how these algebraic properties carry over to the continuum limit to deduce the structure of the space of states as a representation over the product of left and right Virasoro algebras. Our main result is the full structure of the vacuum module of the theory, which exhibits Jordan cells of arbitrary rank for the Hamiltonian.
We define form factors and scattering amplitudes in Conformal Field Theory as the coefficient of the singularity of the Fourier transform of time-ordered correlation functions, as $p^2 to 0$. In particular, we study a form factor $F(s,t,u)$ obtained from a four-point function of identical scalar primary operators. We show that $F$ is crossing symmetric, analytic and it has a partial wave expansion. We illustrate our findings in the 3d Ising model, perturbative fixed points and holographic CFTs.
We discuss consequences of the breaking of conformal symmetry by a flat or spherical extended operator. We adapt the embedding formalism to the study of correlation functions of symmetric traceless tensors in the presence of the defect. Two-point functions of a bulk and a defect primary are fixed by conformal invariance up to a set of OPE coefficients, and we identify the allowed tensor structures. A correlator of two bulk primaries depends on two cross-ratios, and we study its conformal block decomposition in the case of external scalars. The Casimir equation in the defect channel reduces to a hypergeometric equation, while the bulk channel blocks are recursively determined in the light-cone limit. In the special case of a defect of codimension two, we map the Casimir equation in the bulk channel to the one of a four-point function without defect. Finally, we analyze the contact terms of the stress-tensor with the extended operator, and we deduce constraints on the CFT data. In two dimensions, we relate the displacement operator, which appears among the contact terms, to the reflection coefficient of a conformal interface, and we find unitarity bounds for the latter.
Logarithmic representations of the conformal Galilean algebra (CGA) and the Exotic Conformal Galilean algebra ({sc ecga}) are constructed. This can be achieved by non-decomposable representations of the scaling dimensions or the rapidity indices, specific to conformal galilean algebras. Logarithmic representations of the non-exotic CGA lead to the expected constraints on scaling dimensions and rapidities and also on the logarithmic contributions in the co-variant two-point functions. On the other hand, the {sc ecga} admits several distinct situations which are distinguished by different sets of constraints and distinct scaling forms of the two-point functions. Two distinct realisations for the spatial rotations are identified as well. The first example of a reducible, but non-decomposable representation, without logarithmic terms in the two-point function is given.