Conformal Field Theory Research Articles

Elliptic genera from classical error-correcting codes

We consider chiral fermionic conformal field theories constructed from classical error-correcting codes and provide a systematic way of computing their elliptic genera. We exploit the U(1) current of the N\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{N} $$\\end{document} = 2 superconformal algebra to obtain the U(1)-graded partition function that is invariant under the modular transformation and the spectral flow. We demonstrate our method by constructing extremal N\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{N} $$\\end{document} = 2 elliptic genera from classical codes for relatively small central charges. Also, we give near-extremal elliptic genera and decompose them into N\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{N} $$\\end{document} = 2 superconformal characters.

Logarithmic celestial conformal field theory

Logarithmic celestial conformal field theory

Wormholes and surface defects in rational ensemble holography

We study wormhole contributions to the bulk path integral in holographic models which are dual to ensembles of rational free boson conformal field theories. We focus on the path integral on a geometry connecting two toroidal boundaries, which should capture the variance of the ensemble distribution. We show that this requirement leads to a nontrivial set of constraints which generically picks out the uniform, maximum entropy, ensemble distribution. Furthermore, we show that the two-boundary path integral should receive contributions from ‘exotic’ wormholes, which arise from the inclusion of topological surface defects.

Conformal field theories generated by Chern insulators under decoherence or measurement

Conformal field theories generated by Chern insulators under decoherence or measurement

The O(N) monolith reloaded: sum rules and Form Factor Bootstrap

We revisit the space of gapped quantum field theories with a global O(N) symmetry in two spacetime dimensions. Previous works using S-matrix bootstrap revealed a rich space in which integrable theories such as the non-linear sigma model appear at special points on the boundary, along with an abundance of unknown models hinting at a non conventional UV behaviour. We extend the S-matrix set-up by including into the bootstrap form factors and spectral functions for the stress-energy tensor and conserved O(N) currents. Sum rules allow us to put bounds on the central charges of the conformal field theory (CFT) in the UV. We find that a big portion of the boundary can only flow from CFTs with infinite central charges. We track this result down to a particular behaviour of the amplitudes in physical kinematics and discuss its physical implications.

QCD factorization from light-ray OPE

The energy-energy correlator (EEC) in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) serves as an important event shape for probing the substructure of jets in high-energy collisions. A significant progress has been made in understanding the collinear limit, where the angle between two detectors approaches zero, from the factorization formula in QCD and the light-ray Operator Product Expansion (OPE) in Conformal Field Theory. Building upon prior research on the renormalization of light-ray operators, we take an innovative step to extend the light-ray OPE into non-conformal contexts, with a specific emphasis on perturbative QCD. Our proposed form of the light-ray OPE is constrained by three fundamental properties: Lorentz symmetry, renormalization group invariance, and constraints from physical observables. This extension allows us to derive a factorization formula for the collinear limit of EEC, facilitating the future exploration and understanding on subleading power corrections in collinear limit.

On intermediate Lie algebra E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document}

E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document} is an intermediate Lie algebra filling a hole between E7\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_7$$\\end{document} and E8\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_8$$\\end{document} in the Deligne–Cvitanović exceptional series. It was found independently by Mathur, Muhki, Sen in the classification of 2d RCFTs via modular linear differential equations (MLDE) and by Deligne, Cohen, de Man in representation theory. In this paper we propose some new vertex operator algebras (VOA) associated with E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document} and give some useful information at small levels. We conjecture that the affine VOA (E7+1/2)k\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$(E_{7+1/2})_k$$\\end{document} is rational if and only if the level k is at most 5, and provide some evidence from the viewpoint of MLDE. We propose a conjectural Weyl dimension formula for infinitely many irreducible representations of E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document}, which generates almost all irreducible representations of E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document} with level k≤4\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$k\\le 4$$\\end{document}. More concretely, we propose the affine VOA E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document} at level 2 and the rank-two instanton VOA associated with E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document}. We compute the VOA characters and provide some coset constructions. These generalize the previous works of Kawasetsu for affine VOA E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document} at level 1 and of Arakawa–Kawasetsu at level -5\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$-5$$\\end{document}. We then predict the conformal weights of affine VOA E7+1/2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$E_{7+1/2}$$\\end{document} at level 3, 4, 5.

Tautomeric contributions to the absorption spectrum of [2,2′-bipyridyl]-3,3′-diol in water unveiled by molecular dynamics with accurate quantum mechanically derived force-fields

In this work, we provide a realistic description of the tautomers of [2,2′-bipyridyl]-3,3′-diol (BPOH2) and their relative populations in water solution, eventually validating the computational predictions through the comparison of the simulated absorption spectrum with the one experimentally measured at ambient conditions. To this end, we present an original computational protocol, which exploits accurate and specific quantum mechanically derived force-fields in a MD/QM sequential procedure, allowing for a first principle characterization of all BPOH2 tautomers, including their thermalized conformational dynamics and relative Boltzmann weights. To our knowledge, this represents an unprecedented result demonstrating that the lower energy bands, appearing in water, are due to the absorption of the diketo tautomer of BPOH2, which is stabilized by a strong and specific hydrogen bond network. Considering its general applicability, the proposed computational procedure paves the way to future application on more complex systems of biological or technological relevance, as for instance protic solvents micro-confined in large organic aggregates.

Extracting Higher Central Charge from a Single Wave Function.

A (2+1)D topologically ordered phase may or may not have a gappable edge, even if its chiral central charge c_{-} is vanishing. Recently, it was discovered that a quantity regarded as a "higher" version of chiral central charge gives a further obstruction beyond c_{-} to gapping out the edge. In this Letter, we show that the higher central charges can be characterized by the expectation value of the partial rotation operator acting on the wave function of the topologically ordered state. This allows us to extract the higher central charge from a single wave function, which can be evaluated on a quantum computer. Our characterization of the higher central charge is analytically derived from the modular properties of edge conformal field theory, as well as the numerical results with the ν=1/2 bosonic Laughlin state and the non-Abelian gapped phase of the Kitaev honeycomb model, which corresponds to U(1)_{2} and Ising topological order, respectively. The Letter establishes a numerical method to obtain a set of obstructions to the gappable edge of (2+1)D bosonic topological order beyond c_{-}, which enables us to completely determine if a (2+1)D bosonic Abelian topological order has a gappable edge or not. We also point out that the expectation values of the partial rotation on a single wave function put a constraint on the low-energy spectrum of the bulk-boundary system of (2+1)D bosonic topological order, reminiscent of the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis-type theorems.

Schramm-Loewner Evolution in 2D Rigidity Percolation.

Amorphous solids may resist external deformation such as shear or compression, while they do not present any long-range translational order or symmetry at the microscopic scale. Yet, it was recently discovered that, when they become rigid, such materials acquire a high degree of symmetry hidden in the disorder fluctuations: their microstructure becomes statistically conformally invariant. In this Letter, we exploit this finding to characterize the universality class of central-force rigidity percolation (RP), using Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE) theory. We provide numerical evidence that the interfaces of the mechanically stable structures (rigid clusters), at the rigidification transition, are consistently described by SLE_{κ}, showing that this powerful framework can be applied to a mechanical percolation transition. Using well-known relations between different SLE observables and the universal diffusion constant κ, we obtain the estimation κ∼2.9 for central-force RP. This value is consistent, through relations coming from conformal field theory, with previously measured values for the clusters' fractal dimension D_{f} and correlation length exponent ν, providing new, nontrivial relations between critical exponents for RP. These findings open the way to a fine understanding of the microstructure in other important classes of rigidity and jamming transitions.

Applied nonrelativistic conformal field theory: Scattering-length and effective-range corrections to rate of production of three neutrons at low relative momenta

Due to an accidentally large s-wave scattering length, in a relatively wide range of energy, neutrons are approximately described by the nonrelativistic conformal field theory of unitarity fermions, perturbed by one relevant and an infinite number of irrelevant operators. We develop a formalism which provides a nonperturbative definition of local operators in that nonrelativistic conformal field theory. We compute the scattering-length and effective-range corrections to the two-point functions of primary charge-three operators using the technique of conformal perturbation theory. These calculations allow us to find the first corrections to the scale-invariant behavior of the rate of nuclear reactions with three neutrons in the final state in the regime when the neutrons have small relative momenta. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Generalized hidden conformal symmetry in quadratic f(T) gravity

We find the nonextremal charged rotating charged black holes in quadratic [Formula: see text] gravity are holographically dual to two different hidden conformal field theories. The two conformal field theories can be merged to find a very general hidden conformal field theory, which is generated by the [Formula: see text] modular group. We also carry out the calculation to the extremal limit of the black holes, and find the corresponding dual quantities. Contrary to the existence of two different dual conformal field theories for the extremal charged rotating black holes in Einstein gravity, we find only one dual theory exists for the extremal charged rotating black holes in quadratic [Formula: see text] gravity.

Z3 and (×Z3)3 symmetry protected topological paramagnets

We identify two-dimensional three-state Potts paramagnets with gapless edge modes on a triangular lattice protected by (×Z3)3 ≡ Z3 × Z3 × Z3 symmetry and smaller Z3 symmetry. We derive microscopic models for the gapless edge, uncover their symmetries and analyze the conformal properties. We study the properties of the gapless edge by employing the numerical density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulation and exact diagonalization. We discuss the corresponding conformal field theory, its central charge, and the scaling dimension of the corresponding primary field. We argue, that the low energy limit of our edge modes defined by the SUk(3)/SUk(2) coset conformal field theory with the level k = 2. The discussed two-dimensional models realize a variety of symmetry-protected topological phases, opening a window for studies of the unconventional quantum criticalities between them.

Corner transfer matrix approach to the Yang-Lee singularity in the two-dimensional Ising model in a magnetic field.

We study the two-dimensional (2D) Ising model in a complex magnetic field in the vicinity of the Yang-Lee edge singularity. By using Baxter's variational corner transfer matrix method combined with analytic techniques, we numerically calculate the scaling function and obtain an accurate estimate of the location of the Yang-Lee singularity. The existing series expansions for susceptibility of the 2D Ising model on a triangular lattice by Chan, Guttmann, Nickel, and Perk allowed us to substantially enhance the accuracy of our calculations. Our results are in excellent agreement with the Ising field theory calculations by Fonseca, Zamolodchikov, and the recent work by Xu and Zamolodchikov. In particular, we numerically confirm an agreement between the leading singular behavior of the scaling function and the predictions of the M_{2/5} conformal field theory.

Broken (super) conformal Ward identities at finite temperature

When a (super) conformal field theory is placed on a non-trivial manifold, the (super) conformal symmetry is broken. However, it is still possible to derive broken Ward identities for these broken symmetries, which provide additional constraints on the theory. We derive and apply the broken Ward identities associated with the (super) conformal group on the thermal manifold Mβ=Sβ1×ℝd−1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ {\\mathcal{M}}_{\\beta }={S}_{\\beta}^1\ imes {\\mathbb{R}}^{d-1} $$\\end{document} and M=T2×ℝd−2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{M}={T}^2\ imes {\\mathbb{R}}^{d-2} $$\\end{document}. The novel constraints not only systematically reproduce known results, including an implicit formulation of the generalized Cardy formula, but also elegantly relate the thermal energy spectrum with the conformal spectrum.

Symmetries and spectral statistics in chaotic conformal field theories. Part II. Maass cusp forms and arithmetic chaos

We continue the study of random matrix universality in two-dimensional conformal field theories. This is facilitated by expanding the spectral form factor in a basis of modular invariant eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on the fundamental domain. The focus of this paper is on the discrete part of the spectrum, which consists of the Maass cusp forms. Both their eigenvalues and Fourier coefficients are sporadic discrete numbers with interesting statistical properties and relations to analytic number theory; this is referred to as ‘arithmetic chaos’. We show that the near-extremal spectral form factor at late times is only sensitive to a statistical average over these erratic features. Nevertheless, complete information about their statistical distributions is encoded in the spectral form factor if all its spin sectors exhibit universal random matrix eigenvalue repulsion (a ‘linear ramp’). We ‘bootstrap’ the spectral correlations between the cusp form basis functions that correspond to a universal linear ramp and show that they are unique up to theory-dependent subleading corrections. The statistical treatment of cusp forms provides a natural avenue to fix the subleading corrections in a minimal way, which we observe leads to the same correlations as those described by the [torus]×[interval] wormhole amplitude in AdS3 gravity.

P → ∞ limit of tachyon correlators in (2, 2p + 1) minimal Liouville gravity from classical Liouville theory

Previously it was suggested, motivated by correspondence with JT gravity, that tachyon correlators in (2, 2p+1) minimal Liouville gravity (MLG) in the p → ∞ (semiclassical) limit should be interpreted as moduli space volumes for constant curvature surfaces with conical defects. In this work we propose that these volumes are associated with Kähler metrics on moduli spaces introduced by Zograf and Takhtajan, for which the classical Liouville action is a Kähler potential. We check this proposal by numerical calculation of these Kähler metrics and associated volumes for the simplest example of genus 0 surface with 4 conical defects, using conformal field theory. A peculiar property of MLG correlators is proportionality to number of conformal blocks in a certain region of parameter space; in a particular limiting case, we check this property for the volumes following from classical Liouville action and thus provide an analytic confirmation of our proposal.

The Källén-Lehmann representation in de Sitter spacetime

We study two-point functions of symmetric traceless local operators in the bulk of de Sitter spacetime. We derive the Källén-Lehmann spectral decomposition for any spin and show that unitarity implies its spectral densities are nonnegative. In addition, we recover the Källén-Lehmann decomposition in Minkowski space by taking the flat space limit. Using harmonic analysis and the Wick rotation to Euclidean Anti de Sitter, we derive an inversion formula to compute the spectral densities. Using the inversion formula, we relate the analytic structure of the spectral densities to the late-time boundary operator content. We apply our technical tools to study two-point functions of composite operators in free and weakly coupled theories. In the weakly coupled case, we show how the Källén-Lehmann decomposition is useful to find the anomalous dimensions of the late-time boundary operators. We also derive the Källén-Lehmann representation of two-point functions of spinning primary operators of a Conformal Field Theory on de Sitter.

Conformal Field Theory Ground States as Critical Points of an Entropy Function.

We derive an entropy formula satisfied by the ground states of 1+1D conformal field theories. The formula implies that the ground state is the critical point of an entropy function. We conjecture that this formula may serve as an information-theoretic criterion for conformal field theories, which differs from the conventional algebraic definition. In addition to these findings, we use the same proof method to extract the six global conformal generators of the conformal field theory from its ground state. We validate our results by testing them on different critical lattice models, with excellent agreement.

Narain CFTs from nonbinary stabilizer codes

We generalize the construction of Narain conformal field theories (CFTs) from qudit stabilizer codes to the construction from quantum stabilizer codes over the finite field of prime power order (Fpm\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ {\\mathbbm{F}}_{p^m} $$\\end{document} with p prime and m ≥ 1) or over the ring ℤk with k > 1. Our construction results in rational CFTs, which cover a larger set of points in the moduli space of Narain CFTs than the previous one. We also propose a correspondence between a quantum stabilizer code with non-zero logical qubits and a finite set of Narain CFTs. We illustrate the correspondence with well-known stabilizer codes.