scholarly journals CFT unitarity and the AdS Cutkosky rules

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Meltzer ◽  
Allic Sivaramakrishnan

Abstract We derive the Cutkosky rules for conformal field theories (CFTs) at weak and strong coupling. These rules give a simple, diagrammatic method to compute the double-commutator that appears in the Lorentzian inversion formula. We first revisit weakly-coupled CFTs in flat space, where the cuts are performed on Feynman diagrams. We then generalize these rules to strongly-coupled holographic CFTs, where the cuts are performed on the Witten diagrams of the dual theory. In both cases, Cutkosky rules factorize loop diagrams into on-shell sub-diagrams and generalize the standard S-matrix cutting rules. These rules are naturally formulated and derived in Lorentzian momentum space, where the double-commutator is manifestly related to the CFT optical theorem. Finally, we study the AdS cutting rules in explicit examples at tree level and one loop. In these examples, we confirm that the rules are consistent with the OPE limit and that we recover the S-matrix optical theorem in the flat space limit. The AdS cutting rules and the CFT dispersion formula together form a holographic unitarity method to reconstruct Witten diagrams from their cuts.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachin Jain ◽  
Renjan Rajan John ◽  
Abhishek Mehta ◽  
Amin A. Nizami ◽  
Adithya Suresh

Abstract We show that general parity-violating 3d conformal field theories show a double copy structure for momentum space 3-point functions of conserved currents, stress tensor and marginal scalar operators. Splitting up the CFT correlator into two parts — called homogeneous and non-homogeneous — we show that double copy relations exist for each part separately. We arrive at similar conclusions regarding double copy structures using tree-level correlators of massless fields in dS4. We also discuss the flat space limit of these correlators. We further extend the double copy analysis to correlators involving higher-spin conserved currents, which suggests that the spin-s current correlator can be thought of as s copies of the spin one current correlator.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F. Alday ◽  
Shai M. Chester ◽  
Himanshu Raj

Abstract We study the stress tensor multiplet four-point function in the 6d maximally supersymmetric (2, 0) AN−1 and DN theories, which have no Lagrangian description, but in the large N limit are holographically dual to weakly coupled M-theory on AdS7× S4 and AdS7× S4/ℤ2, respectively. We use the analytic bootstrap to compute the 1-loop correction to this holographic correlator coming from Witten diagrams with supergravity R and the first higher derivative correction R4 vertices, which is the first 1-loop correction computed for a non-Lagrangian theory. We then take the flat space limit and find precise agreement with the corresponding terms in the 11d M-theory S-matrix, some of which we compute for the first time using two-particle unitarity cuts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
António Antunes ◽  
Miguel S. Costa ◽  
Tobias Hansen ◽  
Aaditya Salgarkar ◽  
Sourav Sarkar

Abstract We derive an optical theorem for perturbative CFTs which computes the double discontinuity of conformal correlators from the single discontinuities of lower order correlators, in analogy with the optical theorem for flat space scattering amplitudes. The theorem takes a purely multiplicative form in the CFT impact parameter representation used to describe high-energy scattering in the dual AdS theory. We use this result to study four-point correlation functions that are dominated in the Regge limit by the exchange of the graviton Regge trajectory (Pomeron) in the dual theory. At one-loop the scattering is dominated by double Pomeron exchange and receives contributions from tidal excitations of the scattering states which are efficiently described by an AdS vertex function, in close analogy with the known Regge limit result for one-loop string scattering in flat space at finite string tension. We compare the flat space limit of the conformal correlator to the flat space results and thus derive constraints on the one-loop vertex function for type IIB strings in AdS and also on general spinning tree level type IIB amplitudes in AdS.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F. Alday ◽  
Shai M. Chester ◽  
Tobias Hansen

Abstract We study the stress tensor four-point function for $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 SYM with gauge group G = SU(N), SO(2N + 1), SO(2N) or USp(2N) at large N . When G = SU(N), the theory is dual to type IIB string theory on AdS5× S5 with complexified string coupling τs, while for the other cases it is dual to the orbifold theory on AdS5× S5/ℤ2. In all cases we use the analytic bootstrap and constraints from localization to compute 1-loop and higher derivative tree level corrections to the leading supergravity approximation of the correlator. We give perturbative evidence that the localization constraint in the large N and finite complexified coupling τ limit can be written for each G in terms of Eisenstein series that are modular invariant in terms of τs ∝ τ, which allows us to fix protected terms in the correlator in that limit. In all cases, we find that the flat space limit of the correlator precisely matches the type IIB S-matrix. We also find a closed form expression for the SU(N) 1-loop Mellin amplitude with supergravity vertices. Finally, we compare our analytic predictions at large N and finite τ to bounds from the numerical bootstrap in the large N regime, and find that they are not saturated for any G and any τ , which suggests that no physical theory saturates these bootstrap bounds.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Redi ◽  
Andrea Tesi

Abstract We use the framework of relativistic and non-relativistic conformal field theories (CFT) to derive general results relevant for the production of weakly coupled and strongly coupled dark sectors through thermal interactions. Our result reproduce trivially known formulas for 2 → n processes and extend to general m → n processes as well as interacting dark sectors. As concrete examples we consider freeze-in of a relativistic CFT coupled to the SM with contact interactions and derive Sommerfeld enhancement of non-relativistic cross-sections from the theory of fermions at unitarity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F. Alday ◽  
Xinan Zhou

Abstract We demonstrate the simplicity of AdS5× S5 IIB supergravity at one loop level, by studying non-planar holographic four-point correlators in Mellin space. We develop a systematic algorithm for constructing one-loop Mellin amplitudes from the tree-level data, and obtain a simple closed form answer for the $$ \left\langle {\mathcal{O}}_2^{SG}{\mathcal{O}}_2^{SG}{\mathcal{O}}_p^{SG}{\mathcal{O}}_p^{SG}\right\rangle $$ O 2 SG O 2 SG O p SG O p SG correlators. The structure of this expression is remarkably simple, containing only simultaneous poles in the Mellin variables. We also study the flat space limit of the Mellin amplitudes, which reproduces precisely the IIB supergravity one-loop amplitude in ten dimensions. Our results provide nontrivial evidence for the persistence of the hidden conformal symmetry at one loop.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Bonifacio ◽  
Kurt Hinterbichler

Abstract A compact Riemannian manifold is associated with geometric data given by the eigenvalues of various Laplacian operators on the manifold and the triple overlap integrals of the corresponding eigenmodes. This geometric data must satisfy certain consistency conditions that follow from associativity and the completeness of eigenmodes. We show that it is possible to obtain nontrivial bounds on the geometric data of closed Einstein manifolds by using semidefinite programming to study these consistency conditions, in analogy to the conformal bootstrap bounds on conformal field theories. These bootstrap bounds translate to constraints on the tree-level masses and cubic couplings of Kaluza-Klein modes in theories with compact extra dimensions. We show that in some cases the bounds are saturated by known manifolds.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Congkao Wen ◽  
Shun-Qing Zhang

Abstract We present a compact formula in Mellin space for the four-point tree-level holographic correlators of chiral primary operators of arbitrary conformal weights in (2, 0) supergravity on AdS3× S3, with two operators in tensor multiplet and the other two in gravity multiplet. This is achieved by solving the recursion relation arising from a hidden six-dimensional conformal symmetry. We note the compact expression is obtained after carefully analysing the analytic structures of the correlators. Various limits of the correlators are studied, including the maximally R-symmetry violating limit and flat-space limit.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shota Komatsu ◽  
Miguel F. Paulos ◽  
Balt C. van Rees ◽  
Xiang Zhao

Abstract Quantum field theories in AdS generate conformal correlation functions on the boundary, and in the limit where AdS is nearly flat one should be able to extract an S-matrix from such correlators. We discuss a particularly simple position-space procedure to do so. It features a direct map from boundary positions to (on-shell) momenta and thereby relates cross ratios to Mandelstam invariants. This recipe succeeds in several examples, includes the momentum-conserving delta functions, and can be shown to imply the two proposals in [1] based on Mellin space and on the OPE data. Interestingly the procedure does not always work: the Landau singularities of a Feynman diagram are shown to be part of larger regions, to be called ‘bad regions’, where the flat-space limit of the Witten diagram diverges. To capture these divergences we introduce the notion of Landau diagrams in AdS. As in flat space, these describe on-shell particles propagating over large distances in a complexified space, with a form of momentum conservation holding at each bulk vertex. As an application we recover the anomalous threshold of the four-point triangle diagram at the boundary of a bad region.


2011 ◽  
Vol 84 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiana Athanasiou ◽  
Paul M. Chesler ◽  
Hong Liu ◽  
Dominik Nickel ◽  
Krishna Rajagopal

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