Soft bootstrap and effective field theories

Abstract

The soft bootstrap program aims to construct consistent effective field theories (EFT’s) by recursively imposing the desired soft limit on tree-level scattering amplitudes through on-shell recursion relations. A prime example is the leading two-derivative operator in the EFT of SU(N) × SU(N)/SU(N) nonlinear sigma model (NLSM), where O(p 2 ) amplitudes with an arbitrary multiplicity of external particles can be soft-bootstrapped. We extend the program to O(p 4 ) operators and introduce the “soft blocks,” which are the seeds for soft bootstrap. The number of soft blocks coincides with the number of independent operators at a given order in the derivative expansion and the incalculable Wilson coefficient emerges naturally. We also uncover a new soft-constructible EFT involving the “multi-trace” operator at the leading two-derivative order, which is matched to SO(N + 1)/SO(N) NLSM. In addition, we consider Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) terms, the existence of which, or the lack thereof, depends on the number of flavors in the EFT, after a novel application of Bose symmetry. Remarkably, we find agreements with grouptheoretic considerations on the existence of WZW terms in SU(N) NLSM for N ≥ 3 and the absence of WZW terms in SO(N) NLSM for N 6= 5.