Special Conformal Transformations Research Articles

On the Application of the Method of Induced Representations to the Conformal Group

The method of induced representations is applied to the conformal group. By its means, it is shown that the coset space to be used within the coset space technique for the construction of conformally-invariant theories must include the “Nambu–Goldstone” fields for special conformal transformations. They turn out to be non-dynamical fields whose dependence on the coordinates is fixed by the symmetries.

Coset space construction for the conformal group

The technique for constructing conformally invariant theories within the coset space construction is developed. It reproduces all consequences of the conformal invariance and Lagrangians of widely-known conformal field theories. The method of induced representations, which plays the key role in the construction, allows to reveal a special role of the "Nambu-Goldstone fields" for special conformal transformations. Namely, their dependence on the coordinates turns out to be fixed by the symmetries. This results in the appearance of the constraints on possible forms of Lagrangians, which ensure that discrete symmetries are indeed symmetries of the theory.

A Wilsonian energy-momentum tensor

For local conformal field theories, it is shown how to construct an expression for the energy-momentum tensor in terms of a Wilsonian effective Lagrangian. Tracelessness implies a single, unintegrated equation which enforces both the Exact Renormalization Group equation and its partner encoding invariance under special conformal transformations.

Double-soft behavior of the dilaton of spontaneously broken conformal invariance

The Ward identities involving the currents associated to the spontaneously broken scale and special conformal transformations are derived and used to determine, through linear order in the two soft-dilaton momenta, the double-soft behavior of scattering amplitudes involving two soft dilatons and any number of other particles. It turns out that the double-soft behavior is equivalent to performing two single-soft limits one after the other. We confirm the new double-soft theorem perturbatively at tree-level in a D-dimensional conformal field theory model, as well as nonperturbatively by using the “gravity dual” of mathcal{N}=4 super Yang-Mills on the Coulomb branch; i.e. the Dirac-Born-Infeld action on AdS5 × S5.

Big bounce, slow-roll inflation, and dark energy from conformal gravity

We examine the cosmological sector of a gauge theory of gravity based on the SO(4,2) conformal group of Minkowski space. We allow for conventional matter coupled to the spacetime metric as well as matter coupled to the field that gauges special conformal transformations. An effective cosmological constant is generated dynamically via solution of the equations of motion, and this allows us to recover the late time acceleration of the universe. Furthermore, gravitational fields sourced by ordinary cosmological matter (i.e. dust and radiation) are significantly weakened in the very early universe, which has the effect of replacing the big bang with a big bounce. Finally, we find that this bounce is followed by a period of nearly-exponential slow roll inflation that can last long enough to explain the large scale homogeneity of the cosmic microwave background.

Preconjugate variables in quantum field theory and their applications

Preconjugate variables X have commutation relations with the energy-momentum P of the respective system which are of a more general form than just the Hamiltonian one. Since they have been proven useful in their own right for finding new spacetimes we present here a study of them. Interesting examples can be found via geometry: motions on the mass-shell for massive and massless systems, and via group theory: invariance under special conformal transformations of mass-shell, resp. light-cone -- both find representations on Fock space. We work mainly in ordinary fourdimensional Minkowski space and spin zero. The limit process from non-zero to vanishing mass turns out to be non-trivial and leads naturally to wedge variables. We point out some applications and extension to more general spacetimes. In a companion paper we discuss the transition to conjugate pairs.

Subsubleading soft theorems of gravitons and dilatons in the bosonic string

Starting from the amplitude with an arbitrary number of massless closed states of the bosonic string, we compute the soft limit when one of the states becomes soft to subsubleading order in the soft momentum expansion, and we show that when the soft state is a graviton or a dilaton, the full string amplitude can be expressed as a soft theorem through subsubleading order. It turns out that there are string corrections to the field theoretical limit in the case of a soft graviton, while for a soft dilaton the string corrections vanish. We then show that the new soft theorems, including the string corrections, can be simply obtained from the exchange diagrams where the soft state is attached to the other external states through the three-point string vertex of three massless states. In the soft-limit, the propagator of the exchanged state is divergent, and at tree-level these are the only divergent contributions to the full amplitude. However, they do not form a gauge invariant subset and must be supplemented with extra non-singular terms. The requirement of gauge invariance then fixes the complete amplitude through subsubleading order in the soft expansion, reproducing exactly what one gets from the explicit calculation in string theory. From this it is seen that the string corrections at subsubleading order arise as a consequence of the three-point amplitude having string corrections in the bosonic string. When specialized to a soft dilaton, it remarkably turns out that the string corrections vanish and that the non-singular piece of the subsubleading term of the dilaton soft theorem is the generator of space-time special conformal transformation.

New soft theorems for the gravity dilaton and the Nambu-Goldstone dilaton at subsubleading order

We study the soft behavior of two seemingly different particles that are both referred to as dilatons in the literature, namely the one that appears in theories of gravity and in string theory and the Nambu-Goldstone boson of spontaneously broken conformal invariance. Our primary result is the discovery of a soft theorem at subsubleading order for each dilaton, which in both cases contains the operator of special conformal transformations. Interesting similarities as well as differences between the dilaton soft theorems are discussed.

Infrared modification of gravity from conformal symmetry

We reconsider a gauge theory of gravity in which the gauge group is the conformal group SO(4,2) and the action is of the Yang-Mills form, quadratic in the curvature. The resulting gravitational theory exhibits local conformal symmetry and reduces to Weyl-squared gravity under certain conditions. When the theory is linearized about flat spacetime, we find that matter which couples to the generators of special conformal transformations reproduces Newton's inverse square law. Conversely, matter which couples to generators of translations induces a constant and possibly repulsive force far from the source, which may be relevant for explaining the late time acceleration of the universe. The coupling constant of theory is dimensionless, which means that it is potentially renormalizable.

The cosmological Slavnov-Taylor identity from BRST symmetry in single-field inflation

The cosmological Slavnov-Taylor (ST) identity of the Einstein-Hilbert action coupled to a single inflaton field is obtained from the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetry associated with diffeomorphism invariance in the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) formalism. The consistency conditions between the correlators of the scalar and tensor modes in the squeezed limit are then derived from the ST identity, together with the softly broken conformal symmetry. Maldacena's original relations connecting the 2- and 3-point correlators at horizon crossing are recovered, as well as the next-to-leading corrections, controlled by the special conformal transformations.

Extended conformal symmetry ind≠4: Conformal symmetry of Abelian gauge theory in the physical sector

Abelian gauge theory in $d\neq 4$ spacetime dimensions is an example of a scale invariant theory which does not possess conformal symmetry -- the special conformal transformation(SCT) explicitly breaks the gauge invariance of the theory. In this work, we construct a non-local gauge-invariant extension of the SCT, which is compatible with the BRST formalism and defines a new symmetry of the physical Hilbert space of the Maxwell theory for any dimension $d\geqslant 3$. We prove the invariance of the Maxwell theory in $d\geqslant 3$ by explicitly showing that the gauge-invariant two-point correlation functions, the action, and the classical equation of motion are unchanged under such a transformation.

Ward identities for scale and special conformal transformations in inflation

We derive the general Ward identities for scale and special conformal transformations in theories of single field inflation. Our analysis is model independent and based on symmetry considerations alone. The identities we obtain are valid to all orders in the slow roll expansion. For special conformal transformations, the Ward identities include a term which is non-linear in the fields that arises due to a compensating spatial reparametrization. Some observational consequences are also discussed.

Symmetries and exact solutions of a class of nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger equations with self-induced parity-time-symmetric potential.

A class of nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger equations (NLSEs) is considered in an external potential with a space-time modulated coefficient of the nonlinear interaction term as well as confining and/or loss-gain terms. This is a generalization of a recently introduced integrable nonlocal NLSE with self-induced potential that is parity-time-symmetric in the corresponding stationary problem. Exact soliton solutions are obtained for the inhomogeneous and/or nonautonomous nonlocal NLSE by using similarity transformation, and the method is illustrated with a few examples. It is found that only those transformations are allowed for which the transformed spatial coordinate is odd under the parity transformation of the original one. It is shown that the nonlocal NLSE without the external potential and a (d+1)-dimensional generalization of it admits all the symmetries of the (d+1)-dimensional Schrödinger group. The conserved Noether charges associated with the time translation, dilatation, and special conformal transformation are shown to be real-valued in spite of being non-Hermitian. Finally, the dynamics of different moments are studied with an exact description of the time evolution of the "pseudowidth" of the wave packet for the special case in which the system admits a O(2,1) conformal symmetry.

Conformal transformations and strings for an accelerating quark-antiquark pair in AdS 3

From a simple moving open string solution dual to a moving heavy quark with constant velocity in the Poincare AdS_3 spacetime, we construct an accerlerating open string solution dual to a heavy quark-antiquark pair accelerated in opposite directions by performing the three mappings such as the SL(2,R)_L x SL(2,R)_R isometry transformation, the special conformal transformation and the conformal SO(2,2) transformation. Using the string sigma model action we construct two open string solutions staying in two different regions whose dividing line is associated with the event horizon appeared on the string worldsheet and obtain the accelerating open string solution by gluing two such solutions.

On Hidden Symmetries of d > 4 NHEK-N-AdS Geometry

As well known, all higher dimensional Kerr-NUT-Ads metrics with arbitrary rotation and NUT parameters in an asymptotically AdS spacetime have a new hidden symmetry. In this paper, we show that in the near horizon, the isometry group is enhanced to include the dilatation and special conformal transformation, and find the conformal transformation contains the cosmological constant. It is demonstrated that for near horizon extremal Kerr-NUT-Ads (NHEK-N-AdS) only one rank-2 Killing tensor decomposes into a quadratic combination of the Killing vectors in terms of conformal group, while the others are functionally independent.

Local gravitational physics of the Hubble expansion

We study physical consequences of the Hubble expansion of Friedmann-Lemaıtre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) manifold on measurement of space, time and light propagation in the local inertial frame. We use the results of this study to analyse the Solar System radar ranging and Doppler tracking experiments and time synchronization. FLRW manifold is covered by the coordinates (t, y i ), where t is the cosmic time coinciding with the proper time of the Hubble observers and identified with the barycentric coordinate time (TCB) used in ephemeris astronomy. We introduce the local inertial coordinates x α = (x 0, x i ) in the vicinity of a world line of a Hubble observer with the help of a special conformal transformation that respects the local equivalence between the tangent and FLRW manifold. The local inertial metric is Minkowski flat and is materialized by the congruence of time-like geodesics of static observers being at rest with respect to the local spatial coordinates x i . The static observers are equipped with the ideal clocks measuring their own proper time which is synchronized with the cosmic time t measured by the Hubble observer. We consider the geodesic motion of test particles and notice that the local coordinate time x 0 = x 0(t) taken as a parameter along the world line of the particle, is a function of Hubble’s observer time t. This function changes smoothly from x 0 = t for a particle at rest (observer’s clock), to x 0 = t + (1/2)Ht 2 for photons, where H is the Hubble constant. Thus, the motion of a test particle is non-uniform when its world line is parametrized by the cosmic time t. NASA JPL Orbit Determination Program operates under the assumption that the spacetime is asymptotically flat which presumes that the motion of light (after the Shapiro delay is excluded) is uniform with respect to the time t but it does not comply with the non-uniform motion of light on cosmological manifold. For this reason, the motion of light in the Solar System analysed with the Orbit Determination Program appears as having a systematic blue shift of frequency, of radio waves circulating in the Earth-spacecraft radio link. The magnitude of the anomalous blue shift of frequency is proportional to the Hubble constant H that may open an access to the measurement of this fundamental cosmological parameter in the Solar System radiowave experiments.

Conformal symmetry, Rindler space, and the AdS/CFT correspondence

Field theories in black hole spacetimes undergo dimensional reduction near horizon (in the Rindler limit) to two-dimensional conformal field theories. We investigate this enhancement of symmetries in the context of gauge/gravity duality by considering Rindler space as the boundary of anti-de Sitter space in three spacetime dimensions. We show that the loxodromy conjugacy class of the SO(2,2) isometry group is responsible for generating the special conformal transformations on the boundary under renormalization group flow. We use this approach to present an alternative derivation of the two-point function in Rindler space using AdS/CFT correspondence.

Conformal symmetry of the Lange–Neubert evolution equation

The Lange–Neubert evolution equation describes the scale dependence of the wave function of a meson built of an infinitely heavy quark and light antiquark at light-like separations, which is the hydrogen atom problem of QCD. It has numerous applications to the studies of B-meson decays. We show that the kernel of this equation can be written in a remarkably compact form, as a logarithm of the generator of special conformal transformation in the light-ray direction. This representation allows one to study solutions of this equation in a very simple and mathematically consistent manner. Generalizing this result, we show that all heavy–light evolution kernels that appear in the renormalization of higher-twist B-meson distribution amplitudes can be written in the same form.

Marginal fluctuations as instantons on M2/D2-branes

We introduce some (anti-) M/D-branes through turning on the corresponding field strengths of the 11- and 10-dimensional supergravity theories over \(\hbox {AdS}_4 \times M^{7|6}\) spaces, where we use \(S^7/Z_k\) and \(CP^3\) for the internal spaces. Indeed, when we add M2/D2-branes on the same directions with the near horizon branes of the Aharony–Bergman–Jafferis–Maldacena model, all symmetries and supersymmetries are preserved trivially. In this case, we obtain a localized object just in the horizon. This normalizable bulk massless scalar mode is a singlet of \(SO(8)\) and \(SU(4) \times U(1)\), and it agrees with a marginal boundary operator of the conformal dimension of \(\Delta _+=3\). However, after performing a special conformal transformation, we see that the solution is localized in the Euclideanized \(\hbox {AdS}_4\) space and is attributable to the included anti-M2/D2-branes, which are also necessary to ensure that there is no back-reaction. The resultant theory now breaks all \({\mathcal {N}}=8,6\) supersymmetries to \({\mathcal {N}}=0\), while the other symmetries are so preserved. The dual boundary operator is then set up from the skew-whiffing of the representations \(\mathbf 8 _s\) and \(\mathbf 8 _v\) for the supercharges and scalars, respectively, while the fermions remain fixed in \(\mathbf 8 _c\) of the original theory. Besides, we also address another alternate bulk to boundary matching procedure through turning on one of the gauge fields of the full \(U(N)_k \times U(N)_{-k}\) gauge group along the same lines with a similar situation to the one faced in the AdS\(_5\)/CFT\(_4\) correspondence. The latter approach covers the difficulty already faced with in the bulk–boundary matching procedure for \(k=1,2\) as well.

Particle in a self-dual dyon background: Hidden free nature and exotic superconformal symmetry

We show that a nonrelativistic particle in a combined field of a magnetic monopole and $1/{r}^{2}$ potential reveals a hidden, partially free dynamics when the strength of the central potential and the charge-monopole coupling constant are mutually fitted to each other. In this case the system admits both a conserved Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector and a dynamical conformal symmetry. The supersymmetrically extended system corresponds then to a background of a self-dual or anti-self-dual dyon. It is described by a quadratically extended Lie superalgebra $D(2,1;\ensuremath{\alpha})$ with $\ensuremath{\alpha}=1/2$, in which the bosonic set of generators is enlarged by a generalized Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector and its dynamical integral counterpart related to Galilei symmetry, as well as by the chiral ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$-grading operator. The odd part of the nonlinear superalgebra comprises a complete set of $24=2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}4$ fermionic generators. Here a usual duplication comes from the ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$-grading structure; the second factor can be associated with a triad of scalar integrals---the Hamiltonian, the generator of special conformal transformations, and the squared total angular momentum vector, while the quadruplication is generated by a chiral spin vector integral which exits due to the (anti-)self-dual nature of the electromagnetic background.