Engineering topics

Rychkov, Slava

Publications and source records attributed to Rychkov, Slava.

3 records

DOE OSTI2023

Twist Accumulation in Conformal Field Theory: A Rigorous Approach to the Lightcone Bootstrap

We prove that in any unitary CFT, a twist gap in the spectrum of operator product expansion (OPE) of identical scalar quasiprimary operators (i.e. Φ x Φ) implies the existence of a family of quasiprimary operators O τ,l with spins l → ∞ and twists τ → 2Δ Φ in the same OPE spectrum. A similar twist-accumulation result is proven for any two-dimensional Virasoro-invariant, modular-invariant, unitary CFT with a normalizable vacuum and central charge c > 1, where we show that a twist gap in the spectrum of Virasoro primaries implies the existence of a family of Virasoro primaries Oh, $\overline{h}$ with h → ∞ and $\overline{h}$→ c-1/24 (the same is true with h and $\overline{h}$ interchanged). Here, we summarize the similarity of the two problems and propose a general formulation of the lightcone bootstrap.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Navigator function for the conformal bootstrap

Current numerical conformal bootstrap techniques carve out islands in theory space by repeatedly checking whether points are allowed or excluded. We propose a new method for searching theory space that replaces the binary information "allowed"/"excluded" with a continuous "navigator" function that is negative in the allowed region and positive in the excluded region. Such a navigator function allows one to efficiently explore high-dimensional parameter spaces and smoothly sail towards any islands they may contain. The specific functions we introduce have several attractive features: they are well-defined in large regions of parameter space, can be computed with standard methods, and evaluation of their gradient is immediate due to an SDP gradient formula that we provide. The latter property allows for the use of efficient quasi-Newton optimization methods, which we illustrate by navigating towards the 3d Ising island.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2021

Distributions in CFT. Part II. Minkowski space

CFTs in Euclidean signature satisfy well-accepted rules, such as the convergent Euclidean OPE. It is nowadays common to assume that CFT correlators exist and have various properties also in Lorentzian signature. Some of these properties may represent extra assumptions, and it is an open question if they hold for familiar statistical-physics CFTs such as the critical 3d Ising model. Here we consider Wightman 4-point functions of scalar primaries in Lorentzian signature. We derive a minimal set of their properties solely from the Euclidean unitary CFT axioms, without using extra assumptions. We establish all Wightman axioms (temperedness, spectral property, local commutativity, clustering), Lorentzian conformal invariance, and distributional convergence of the s-channel Lorentzian OPE. This is done constructively, by analytically continuing the 4-point functions using the s-channel OPE expansion in the radial cross-ratios ρ, ρ¯. We prove a key fact that |ρ|, |ρ¯| < 1 inside the forward tube, and set bounds on how fast |ρ|, |ρ¯| may tend to 1 when approaching the Minkowski space.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗