The analytic structure of the fixed charge expansion

Abstract

We investigate the analytic properties of the fixed charge expansion for a number of conformal field theories in different space-time dimensions. The models investigated here are O(N) and QED3. We show that in d = 3 − ϵ dimensions the contribution to the O(N) fixed charge Q conformal dimensions obtained in the double scaling limit of large charge and vanishing ϵ is non-Borel summable, doubly factorial divergent, and with order sqrt{Q} optimal truncation order. By using resurgence techniques we show that the singularities in the Borel plane are related to worldline instantons that were discovered in the other double scaling limit of large Q and N of ref. [1]. In d = 4 − ϵ dimensions the story changes since in the same large Q and small E regime the next order corrections to the scaling dimensions lead to a convergent series. The resummed series displays a new branch cut singularity which is relevant for the stability of the O(N) large charge sector for negative ϵ. Although the QED3 model shares the same large charge behaviour of the O(N) model, we discover that at leading order in the large number of matter field expansion the large charge scaling dimensions are Borel summable, single factorial divergent, and with order Q optimal truncation order.