The nuts and bolts of the BMS bootstrap

Abstract

In this paper, we elaborate on aspects of the recently introduced BMS bootstrap programme. We consider two-dimensional (2d) field theories with BMS3 symmetry and extensively use highest weight representations to uncover the BMS version of crossing symmetry in 4-point functions that are constrained by symmetry. The BMS bootstrap equation is formulated and then analytic expressions for BMS blocks are constructed by looking at the limit of large central charges. These results are also applicable to 2d Galilean conformal field theories (CFTs) through the isomorphism between the BMS3 and 2d Galilean conformal algebras. We recover our previously obtained results in the non-relativistic limit of the corresponding ones in 2d relativistic CFTs. This provides a comprehensive check of our previous analysis. We also explore the chiral limit of BMS3 where the BMS algebra reduces to a single copy of the Virasoro algebra and show that our analysis is consistent with earlier work in this direction.