No Arabic abstract
We propose a new non-perturbative method for studying UV complete unitary quantum field theories (QFTs) with a mass gap in general number of spacetime dimensions. The method relies on unitarity formulated as positive semi-definiteness of the matrix of inner products between asymptotic states (in and out) and states created by the action of local operators on the vacuum. The corresponding matrix elements involve scattering amplitudes, form factors and spectral densities of local operators. We test this method in two-dimensional QFTs by setting up a linear optimization problem that gives a lower bound on the central charge of the UV CFT associated to a QFT with a given mass spectrum of stable particles (and couplings between them). Some of our numerical bounds are saturated by known form factors in integrable theories like the sine-Gordon, E8 and O(N) models.
We propose a systematic approach to computing the BPS spectra of any 5d/6d supersymmetric quantum field theory in Coulomb phases, which admits either gauge theory descriptions or geometric descriptions, based on the Nakajima-Yoshiokas blowup equations. We provide a significant generalization of the blowup equation approach in terms of both properly quantized magnetic fluxes on the blowup $hat{mathbb{C}}^2$ and the effective prepotential for 5d/6d field theories on the Omega background which is uniquely determined by the Chern-Simons couplings on their Coulomb branches. We employ our method to compute BPS spectra of all rank-1 and rank-2 5d Kaluza-Klein (KK) theories descending from 6d $mathcal{N}=(1,0)$ superconformal field theories (SCFTs) compactified on a circle with/without twist. We also discuss various 5d SCFTs and KK theories of higher ranks, which include a few exotic cases such as new rank-1 and rank-2 5d SCFTs engineered with frozen singularity as well as the 5d $SU(3)_8$ gauge theory currently having neither a brane web nor a smooth shrinkable geometric description. The results serve as non-trivial checks for a large class of non-trivial dualities among 5d theories and also as independent evidences for the existence of certain exotic theories.
We determine both analytically and numerically the entanglement between chiral degrees of freedom in the ground state of massive perturbations of 1+1 dimensional conformal field theories quantised on a cylinder. Analytic predictions are obtained from a variational Ansatz for the ground state in terms of smeared conformal boundary states recently proposed by J. Cardy, which is validated by numerical results from the Truncated Conformal Space Approach. We also extend the scope of the Ansatz by resolving ground state degeneracies exploiting the operator product expansion. The chiral entanglement entropy is computed both analytically and numerically as a function of the volume. The excellent agreement between the analytic and numerical results provides further validation for Cardys Ansatz. The chiral entanglement entropy contains a universal $O(1)$ term $gamma$ for which an exact analytic result is obtained, and which can distinguish energetically degenerate ground states of gapped systems in 1+1 dimensions.
We propose a roadmap for bootstrapping conformal field theories (CFTs) described by gauge theories in dimensions $d>2$. In particular, we provide a simple and workable answer to the question of how to detect the gauge group in the bootstrap calculation. Our recipe is based on the notion of emph{decoupling operator}, which has a simple (gauge) group theoretical origin, and is reminiscent of the null operator of $2d$ Wess-Zumino-Witten CFTs in higher dimensions. Using the decoupling operator we can efficiently detect the rank (i.e. color number) of gauge groups, e.g., by imposing gap conditions in the CFT spectrum. We also discuss the physics of the equation of motion, which has interesting consequences in the CFT spectrum as well. As an application of our recipes, we study a prototypical critical gauge theory, namely the scalar QED which has a $U(1)$ gauge field interacting with critical bosons. We show that the scalar QED can be solved by conformal bootstrap, namely we have obtained its kinks and islands in both $d=3$ and $d=2+epsilon$ dimensions.
We study half-BPS line defects in $mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal theories using the bootstrap approach. We concentrate on local excitations constrained to the defect, which means the system is a $1d$ defect CFT with $mathfrak{osp}(4^*|2)$ symmetry. In order to study correlation functions we construct a suitable superspace, and then use the Casimir approach to calculate a collection of new superconformal blocks. Special emphasis is given to the displacement operator, which controls deformations orthogonal to the defect and is always present in a defect CFT. After setting up the crossing equations we proceed with a numerical and analytical bootstrap analysis. We obtain numerical bounds on the CFT data and compare them to known solutions. We also present an analytic perturbative solution to the crossing equations, and argue that this solution captures line defects in $mathcal{N}=2$ gauge theories at strong coupling.
We give the exact solution of classical equation of motion of a quartic scalar massless field theory showing that this is massive and is represented by a superposition of free particle solutions with a discrete spectrum. Then we show that this is also a solution of the classical Yang-Mills field theory that is so proved acquiring mass by dynamical evolution with a corresponding discrete mass spectrum. Finally we develop quantum field theory starting with this solution.