No Arabic abstract
Theories with generalised conformal structure contain a dimensionful parameter, which appears as an overall multiplicative factor in the action. Examples of such theories are gauge theories coupled to massless scalars and fermions with Yukawa interactions and quartic couplings for the scalars in spacetime dimensions other than 4. Many properties of such theories are similar to that of conformal field theories (CFT), and in particular their 2-point functions take the same form as in CFT but with the normalisation constant now replaced by a function of the effective dimensionless coupling $g$ constructed from the dimensionful parameter and the distance separating the two operators. Such theories appear in holographic dualities involving non-conformal branes and this behaviour of the correlators has already been observed at strong coupling. Here we present a perturbative computation of the two-point function of the energy-momentum tensor to two loops in dimensions $d= 3, 5$, confirming the expected structure and determining the corresponding functions of $g$ to this order, including the effects of renormalisation. We also discuss the d=4 case for comparison. The results for $d=3$ are relevant for holographic cosmology, and in this case we also study the effect of a $Phi^6$ coupling, which while marginal in the usual sense it is irrelevant from the perspective of the generalised conformal structure. Indeed, the effect of such coupling in the 2-point function is washed out in the IR but it modifies the UV.
The probably most fundamental information about a particle is contained in the matrix elements of its energy momentum tensor (EMT) which are accessible from hard-exclusive reactions via generalized parton distribution functions. The spin decomposition of the nucleon and Ji sum rule are one example. Less prominent but equally important information is encoded in the stress tensor, related to the spatial components of the EMT, which shows in detail how the strong forces inside the nucleon balance to form a bound state. This provides not only unique insights on nucleon structure. It also leads to fascinating new applications to hadron spectroscopy which allow us to formulate new interpretations of the charmonium-nucleon pentaquarks discovered by LHCb. Recent progress is reviewed in this short overview article.
In this work we investigate the matrix elements of the energy-momentum tensor for massless on-shell states in four-dimensional unitary, local, and Poincare covariant quantum field theories. We demonstrate that these matrix elements can be parametrised in terms of covariant multipoles of the Lorentz generators, and that this gives rise to a form factor decomposition in which the helicity dependence of the states is factorised. Using this decomposition we go on to explore some of the consequences for conformal field theories, deriving the explicit analytic conditions imposed by conformal symmetry, and using examples to illustrate that they uniquely fix the form of the matrix elements. We also provide new insights into the constraints imposed by the existence of massless particles, showing in particular that massless free theories are necessarily conformal.
The structure of the matrix elements of the energy-momentum tensor play an important role in determining the properties of the form factors $A(q^{2})$, $B(q^{2})$ and $C(q^{2})$ which appear in the Lorentz covariant decomposition of the matrix elements. In this paper we apply a rigorous frame-independent distributional-matching approach to the matrix elements of the Poincar{e} generators in order to derive constraints on these form factors as $q rightarrow 0$. In contrast to the literature, we explicitly demonstrate that the vanishing of the anomalous gravitomagnetic moment $B(0)$ and the condition $A(0)=1$ are independent of one another, and that these constraints are not related to the specific properties or conservation of the individual Poincar{e} generators themselves, but are in fact a consequence of the physical on-shell requirement of the states in the matrix elements and the manner in which these states transform under Poincar{e} transformations.
Extending previous work on 2 -- and 3 -- point functions, we study the 4 -- point function and its conformal block structure in conformal quantum mechanics CFT$_1$, which realizes the SO(2,1) symmetry group. Conformal covariance is preserved even though the operators with which we work need not be primary and the states are not conformally invariant. We find that only one conformal block contributes to the four-point function. We describe some further properties of the states that we use and we construct dynamical evolution generated by the compact generator of SO(2.1).
In conformal field theory in Minkowski momentum space, the 3-point correlation functions of local operators are completely fixed by symmetry. Using Ward identities together with the existence of a Lorentzian operator product expansion (OPE), we show that the Wightman function of three scalar operators is a double hypergeometric series of the Appell $F_4$ type. We extend this simple closed-form expression to the case of two scalar operators and one traceless symmetric tensor with arbitrary spin. Time-ordered and partially-time-ordered products are constructed in a similar fashion and their relation with the Wightman function is discussed.