Conformal Partial Wave Expansion Research Articles

From celestial correlators to AdS, and back

We present a general relation between celestial correlation functions in d-dimensions and Witten diagrams in (d + 1)-dimensional Euclidean anti-de Sitter (EAdS) space, to all orders in perturbation theory. Contact diagram processes are proportional to contact Witten diagrams and particle exchanges can be recast as a continuum of particle exchanges in EAdS where the exchanged particles carrying unitary Principal Series representations of SO(d + 1, 1). One can then try to import familiar EAdS techniques to study the properties of celestial correlators. In this work we use this relation to infer the analytic structure of the spectral density in the conformal partial wave expansion of celestial correlators which, at least perturbatively, should be a meromorphic function of the spectral parameter. We also discuss non-perturbative constraints from unitarity in Euclidean Conformal Field Theory, which requires positivity of the spectral density. This extends similar relations recently uncovered between boundary correlation functions in de Sitter space and Witten diagrams in EAdS, suggesting that EAdS could play a central role in efforts towards holography for all lambdas.

Analyticity and unitarity for cosmological correlators

We study the fundamentals of quantum field theory on a rigid de Sitter space. We show that the perturbative expansion of late-time correlation functions to all orders can be equivalently generated by a non-unitary Lagrangian on a Euclidean AdS geometry. This finding simplifies dramatically perturbative computations, as well as allows us to establish basic properties of these correlators, which comprise a Euclidean CFT. We use this to infer the analytic structure of the spectral density that captures the conformal partial wave expansion of a late-time four-point function, to derive an OPE expansion, and to constrain the operator spectrum. Generically, dimensions and OPE coefficients do not obey the usual CFT notion of unitarity. Instead, unitarity of the de Sitter theory manifests itself as the positivity of the spectral density. This statement does not rely on the use of Euclidean AdS Lagrangians and holds non-perturbatively. We illustrate and check these properties by explicit calculations in a scalar theory by computing first tree-level, and then full one- loop-resummed exchange diagrams. An exchanged particle appears as a resonant feature in the spectral density which can be potentially useful in experimental searches.

The F-theorem in the melonic limit

The F-theorem states that in three dimensions the sphere free energy of a field theory must decrease between ultraviolet and infrared fixed points of the renormalization group flow, and it has been proven for unitary conformal field theories (CFTs).We consider here the long-range bosonic O(N)3 model on a spherical background, at next-to-next-to-leading order of the 1/N expansion. The model displays four large-N fixed points and we test and confirm the F-theorem holds in this case. This is non-trivial as one of the couplings is imaginary, and therefore the model is non-unitary at finite N. Despite this, several tests indicating that the large-N CFTs are in fact unitary have been performed: for instance all the OPE coefficients computed so far in the large-N limit are real, and the spectrum of bilinear operators is real and above unitarity bounds. Our result, namely that the F theorem holds at large N, can be viewed as further indication that such theories are unitary.As an added bonus, we show how conformal partial waves expansions in conformal field theory can be used to resum infinite classes of vacuum diagrams. Non-perturbatively, the jump in the value of the free energy has the interpretation of the inclusion at the ultraviolet fixed point of an extra non-normalizable contribution in the conformal partial wave expansion. This can be seen in perturbation theory as the reversal of the sign of an infinite class of diagrams due to the flow of a coupling constant.

From dS to AdS and back

We describe in more detail the general relation uncovered in our previous work between boundary correlators in de Sitter (dS) and in Euclidean anti-de Sitter (EAdS) space, at any order in perturbation theory. Assuming the Bunch-Davies vacuum at early times, any given diagram contributing to a boundary correlator in dS can be expressed as a linear combination of Witten diagrams for the corresponding process in EAdS, where the relative coefficients are fixed by consistent on-shell factorisation in dS. These coefficients are given by certain sinusoidal factors which account for the change in coefficient of the contact sub-diagrams from EAdS to dS, which we argue encode (perturbative) unitary time evolution in dS. dS boundary correlators with Bunch-Davies initial conditions thus perturbatively have the same singularity structure as their Euclidean AdS counterparts and the identities between them allow to directly import the wealth of techniques, results and understanding from AdS to dS. This includes the Conformal Partial Wave expansion and, by going from single-valued Witten diagrams in EAdS to Lorentzian AdS, the Froissart-Gribov inversion formula. We give a few (among the many possible) applications both at tree and loop level. Such identities between boundary correlators in dS and EAdS are made manifest by the Mellin-Barnes representation of boundary correlators, which we point out is a useful tool in its own right as the analogue of the Fourier transform for the dilatation group. The Mellin-Barnes representation in particular makes manifest factorisation and dispersion formulas for bulk-to-bulk propagators in (EA)dS, which imply Cutkosky cutting rules and dispersion formulas for boundary correlators in (EA)dS. Our results are completely general and in particular apply to any interaction of (integer) spinning fields.

From bulk loops to boundary large-N expansion

We study the analytic structure of loop Witten diagrams in Euclidean AdS represented by their conformal partial wave expansions. We show that, as in flat space, amplitude’s singularities are associated with non-trivial cuts of the diagram and factorize into products of the coefficient functions for the subdiagrams resulting from these cuts. We consider an example of a one-loop four-point diagram in detail and then briefly discuss how the procedure can be extended to more general diagrams. Finally, we show that this analysis reproduces simple relations that follow from the large-N considerations on the boundary.

Energy correlations in the end-point region

The energy-energy correlation (EEC) measures the angular distribution of the energy that flows through two calorimeters separated by some relative angle in the final state created by a source. We study this observable in the limit of small and large angles when it describes the correlation between particles belonging, respectively, to the same jet and to two almost back-to-back jets. We present a new approach to resumming large logarithmically enhanced corrections in both limits that exploits the relation between the energy correlations and four-point correlation functions of conserved currents. At large angle, we derive the EEC from the behaviour of the correlation function in the limit when four operators are light-like separated in a sequential manner. At small angle, in a conformal theory, we obtain the EEC from resummation of the conformal partial wave expansion of the correlation function at short-distance separation between the calorimeters. In both cases, we obtain a concise representation of the EEC in terms of the conformal data of twist-two operators and verify it by comparing with the results of explicit calculation at next-to-next-to-leading order in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. As a byproduct of our analysis, we predict the maximal weight part of the analogous QCD expression in the back-to-back limit.

Derivation of the Holographic Dual of a Planar Conformal Field Theory in 4D.

We present the first-principles derivation of a weak-strong duality between the fishnet theory in four dimensions and a discretized stringlike model living in five dimensions. At strong coupling, the dual description becomes classical and we demonstrate explicitly the classical integrability of the model. We test our results by reproducing the strong coupling limit of the four-point correlator computed before nonperturbatively from the conformal partial wave expansion. Because of the extreme simplicity of our model, it could provide an ideal playground for holography with no supersymmetry. Furthermore, since the fishnet model and N=4 super Yang-Mills theory are continuously linked, our consideration could shed light on the derivation of AdS/CFT for the latter. For simplicity, in this Letter we restrict our considerations to a large subset of all states.

Anomalous dimensions from crossing kernels

In this note we consider the problem of extracting the corrections to CFT data induced by the exchange of a primary operator and its descendents in the crossed channel. We show how those corrections which are analytic in spin can be systematically extracted from crossing kernels. To this end, we underline a connection between: Wilson polynomials (which naturally appear when considering the crossing kernels given recently in arXiv:1804.09334), the spectral integral in the conformal partial wave expansion, and Wilson functions. Using this connection, we determine closed form expressions for the OPE data when the external operators in 4pt correlation functions have spins J1-J2-0-0, in particular the anomalous dimensions of double-twist operators of the type {left[{mathcal{O}}_{J_1}{mathcal{O}}_{J_2}right]}_{n,ell } in d dimensions and for both leading (n = 0) and sub-leading (n ≠ 0) twist. The OPE data are expressed in terms of Wilson functions, which naturally appear as a spectral integral of a Wilson polynomial. As a consequence, our expressions are manifestly analytic in spin and are valid up to finite spin. We present some applications to CFTs with slightly broken higher-spin symmetry. The Mellin Barnes integral representation for 6j symbols of the conformal group in general d and its relation with the crossing kernels are also discussed.

AdS weight shifting operators

We construct a new class of differential operators that naturally act on AdS harmonic functions. These are weight shifting operators that change the spin and dimension of AdS representations. Together with CFT weight shifting operators, the new operators obey crossing equations that relate distinct representations of the conformal group. We apply our findings to the computation of Witten diagrams, focusing on the particular case of cubic interactions and on massive, symmetric and traceless fields. In particular we show that tree level 4-point Witten diagrams with arbitrary spins, both in the external fields and in the exchanged field, can be reduced to the action of weight shifting operators on similar 4-point Witten diagrams where all fields are scalars. We also show how to obtain the conformal partial wave expansion of these diagrams using the new set of operators. In the case of 1-loop diagrams with cubic couplings we show how to reduce them to similar 1-loop diagrams with scalar fields except for a single external spinning field (which must be a scalar in the case of a two-point diagram). As a bonus, we provide new CFT and AdS weight shifting operators for mixed-symmetry tensors.

DS/CFT and the operator product expansion

Global conformal invariance determines the form of two- and three-point functions of quasiprimary operators in a conformal field theory and generates nontrivial relations between terms in the operator product expansion. These ideas are generalized to the principal and complementary series representations, which play an important role in the conjectured dS/CFT correspondence. The conformal partial wave expansions are constructed for these representations, which in turn determine the operator product expansion. This leads us to conclude that conformal field theories containing such representations have essential singularities, so they cannot be realized as conventional field theories.

Spinning Witten diagrams

We develop a systematic framework to compute the conformal partial wave expansions (CPWEs) of tree-level four-point Witten diagrams with totally symmetric external fields of arbitrary mass and integer spin in AdSd+1. As an intermediate step, we identify convenient bases of three-point bulk and boundary structures to invert linear map between spinning three-point conformal structures and spinning cubic couplings in AdS. Given a CFTd, this provides the complete holographic reconstruction of all cubic couplings involving totally symmetric fields in the putative dual theory on AdSd+1. Employing this framework, we determine the CPWE of a generic four-point exchange Witten diagram with spinning exchanged field. As a concrete application, we compute all four-point exchange Witten diagrams in the type A higher-spin gauge theory on AdSd+1, which is conjectured to be dual to the free scalar O (N ) model.

Large spin systematics in CFT

Using conformal field theory (CFT) arguments we derive an infinite number of constraints on the large spin expansion of the anomalous dimensions and structure constants of higher spin operators. These arguments rely only on analiticity, unitarity, crossing-symmetry and the structure of the conformal partial wave expansion. We obtain results for both, perturbative CFT to all order in the perturbation parameter, as well as non-perturbatively. For the case of conformal gauge theories this provides a proof of the reciprocity principle to all orders in perturbation theory and provides a new "reciprocity" principle for structure constants. We argue that these results extend also to non-conformal theories.

Towards holographic higher-spin interactions: four-point functions and higher-spin exchange

Within holography, we calculate the contribution of an arbitrary spin-s gauge boson exchange in AdS d+1 to the four-point function with scalar operators on the boundary. As an important ingredient, we first compute the complete bulk-to-bulk propagators for massless bosonic higher-spin fields in the metric-like formulation, in any dimension and in various gauges. The split representation of the bulk-to-bulk propagators in terms of bulk-to-boundary propagators allows to present the higher-spin exchange diagram in the form of a conformal partial wave expansion. Our results provide a step towards the larger goal of the holographic reconstruction of bulk interactions, and of clarifying bulk locality.

Higher order light-cone distribution amplitudes of the Lambda baryon

The improved light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) of the $\Lambda$ baryon are examined on the basis of the QCD conformal partial wave expansion approach. The calculations are carried out to the next-to-leading order of conformal spin accuracy with consideration of twist 6. The next leading order conformal expansion coefficients are related to the nonperturbative parameters defined by the local three quark operator matrix elements with different Lorentz structures with a covariant derivative. The nonperturbative parameters are determined with the QCD sum rule method. The explicit expressions of the LCDAs are provided as the main results.

Higher order corrections to the light-cone distribution amplitudes of the sigma baryon

The light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) of the ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$ baryons up to twist-6 are investigated on the basis of the QCD conformal partial wave expansion approach. The calculations are carried out to the next-to-leading order of conformal spin accuracy. The nonperturbative parameters relevant to the LCDAs are determined in the framework of the QCD sum rule method. The explicit expressions of the LCDAs are given as the main results.

Conformal Regge theory

We generalize Regge theory to correlation functions in conformal field theories. This is done by exploring the analogy between Mellin amplitudes in AdS/CFT and S-matrix elements. In the process, we develop the conformal partial wave expansion in Mellin space, elucidating the analytic structure of the partial amplitudes. We apply the new formalism to the case of four point correlation functions between protected scalar operators in N=4 Super Yang Mills, in cases where the Regge limit is controlled by the leading twist operators associated to the pomeron-graviton Regge trajectory. At weak coupling, we are able to predict to arbitrary high order in the 't Hooft coupling the behaviour near J=1 of the OPE coefficients C_{OOJ} between the external scalars and the spin J leading twist operators. At strong coupling, we use recent results for the anomalous dimension of the leading twist operators to improve current knowledge of the AdS graviton Regge trajectory - in particular, determining the next and next to next leading order corrections to the intercept. Finally, by taking the flat space limit and considering the Virasoro-Shapiro S-matrix element, we compute the strong coupling limit of the OPE coefficient C_{LLJ} between two Lagrangians and the leading twist operators of spin J.

USES OF Q2 EVOLUTION IN GPD PHENOMENOLOGY

We shortly review the status of perturbative corrections to hard exclusive processes, which were partially obtained by utilizing conformal symmetry. We outline the conformal partial wave expansion of generalized parton distributions (GPDs) and hard exclusive amplitudes, which can be used for a model dependent extraction of the two-dimensional momentum fraction shape of GPDs by means of evolution. We exemplify this method and point out it importance for the description of collider data in the small x Bj region.

Deep inelastic scattering in conformal QCD

We consider the Regge limit of a CFT correlation function of two vector and two scalar operators, as appropriate to study small-x deep inelastic scattering in N=4 SYM or in QCD assuming approximate conformal symmetry. After clarifying the nature of the Regge limit for a CFT correlator, we use its conformal partial wave expansion to obtain an impact parameter representation encoding the exchange of a spin j Reggeon for any value of the coupling constant. The CFT impact parameter space is the three-dimensional hyperbolic space H3, which is the impact parameter space for high energy scattering in the dual AdS space. We determine the small-x structure functions associated to the exchange of a Reggeon. We discuss unitarization from the point of view of scattering in AdS and comment on the validity of the eikonal approximation. We then focus on the weak coupling limit of the theory where the amplitude is dominated by the exchange of the BFKL pomeron. Conformal invariance fixes the form of the vector impact factor and its decomposition in transverse spin 0 and spin 2 components. Our formalism reproduces exactly the general results predict by the Regge theory, both for a scalar target and for gamma*-gamma* scattering. We compute current impact factors for the specific examples of N=4 SYM and QCD, obtaining very simple results. In the case of the R-current of N=4 SYM, we show that the transverse spin 2 component vanishes. We conjecture that the impact factors of all chiral primary operators of N=4 SYM only have components with 0 transverse spin.

Unparticle self-interactions

We develop techniques for studying the effects of self-interactions in the conformal sector of an unparticle model. Their physics is encoded in the higher n-point functions of the conformal theory. We study inclusive processes and argue that the inclusive production of unparticle stuff in standard model processes due to the unparticle self-interactions can be decomposed using the conformal partial wave expansion and its generalizations into a sum over contributions from the production of various kinds of unparticle stuff, corresponding to different primary conformal operators. Such processes typically involve the production of unparticle stuff associated with operators other than those to which the standard model couples directly. Thus just as interactions between particles allow scattering processes to produce new particles in the final state, so unparticle self-interactions cause the production of various kinds of unparticle stuff. We discuss both inclusive and exclusive methods for computing these processes. The resulting picture, we believe, is a step towards understanding what unparticle stuff "looks like" because it is quite analogous to way we describe the production and scattering of ordinary particles in quantum field theory, with the primary conformal operators playing the role of particles and the coefficients in the conformal partial wave expansion (and its generalization to include more fields) playing the role of amplitudes. We exemplify our methods in the 2D toy model that we discussed previously in which the Banks-Zaks theory is exactly solvable.

Light-cone distribution amplitudes ofΞand their applications

We present the light-cone distribution amplitudes of the $\ensuremath{\Xi}$ baryons up to twist six on the basis of QCD conformal partial wave expansion to the leading order conformal spin accuracy. The nonperturbative parameters relevant to the DAs are determined in the framework of the QCD sum rule. The light-cone QCD sum rule approach is used to investigate both the electromagnetic form factors of $\ensuremath{\Xi}$ and the exclusive semileptonic decay of ${\ensuremath{\Xi}}_{c}$ as applications. Our estimations on the magnetic moments are ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{{\ensuremath{\Xi}}^{0}}=\ensuremath{-}(1.92\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.34){\ensuremath{\mu}}_{N}$ and ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{{\ensuremath{\Xi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}}=\ensuremath{-}(1.19\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03){\ensuremath{\mu}}_{N}$. The decay width of the process ${\ensuremath{\Xi}}_{c}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\Xi}{e}^{+}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}$ is evaluated to be $\ensuremath{\Gamma}=8.73\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}14}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$, which is in accordance with the experimental measurements and other theoretical approaches.