Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• $T\bar T$ and the mirage of a bulk cutoff

  Monica Guica, Ruben Monten

  SciPost Phys. 10, 024 (2021) · published 1 February 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We use the variational principle approach to derive the large $N$ holographic dictionary for two-dimensional $T\bar T$-deformed CFTs, for both signs of the deformation parameter. The resulting dual gravitational theory has mixed boundary conditions for the non-dynamical graviton; the boundary conditions for matter fields are undeformed. When the matter fields are turned off and the deformation parameter is negative, the mixed boundary conditions for the metric at infinity can be reinterpreted on-shell as Dirichlet boundary conditions at finite bulk radius, in agreement with a previous proposal by McGough, Mezei and Verlinde. The holographic stress tensor of the deformed CFT is fixed by the variational principle, and in pure gravity it coincides with the Brown-York stress tensor on the radial bulk slice with a particular cosmological constant counterterm contribution. In presence of matter fields, the connection between the mixed boundary conditions and the radial "bulk cutoff" is lost. Only the former correctly reproduce the energy of the bulk configuration, as expected from the fact that a universal formula for the deformed energy can only depend on the universal asymptotics of the bulk solution, rather than the details of its interior. The asymptotic symmetry group associated with the mixed boundary conditions consists of two commuting copies of a state-dependent Virasoro algebra, with the same central extension as in the original CFT.

  120 citations

• Comments on abelian Higgs models and persistent order

  Zohar Komargodski, Adar Sharon, Ryan Thorngren, Xinan Zhou

  SciPost Phys. 6, 003 (2019) · published 9 January 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A natural question about Quantum Field Theory is whether there is a deformation to a trivial gapped phase. If the underlying theory has an anomaly, then symmetric deformations can never lead to a trivial phase. We discuss such discrete anomalies in Abelian Higgs models in 1+1 and 2+1 dimensions. We emphasize the role of charge conjugation symmetry in these anomalies; for example, we obtain nontrivial constraints on the degrees of freedom that live on a domain wall in the VBS phase of the Abelian Higgs model in 2+1 dimensions. In addition, as a byproduct of our analysis, we show that in 1+1 dimensions the Abelian Higgs model is dual to the Ising model. We also study variations of the Abelian Higgs model in 1+1 and 2+1 dimensions where there is no dynamical particle of unit charge. These models have a center symmetry and additional discrete anomalies. In the absence of a dynamical unit charge particle, the Ising transition in the 1+1 dimensional Abelian Higgs model is removed. These models without a unit charge particle exhibit a remarkably persistent order: we prove that the system cannot be disordered by either quantum or thermal fluctuations. Equivalently, when these theories are studied on a circle, no matter how small or large the circle is, the ground state is non-trivial.

  119 citations

• Hydrodynamics of spin currents

  Domingo Gallegos, Umut Gursoy, Amos Yarom

  SciPost Phys. 11, 041 (2021) · published 26 August 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study relativistic hydrodynamics in the presence of a non vanishing spin chemical potential. Using a variety of techniques we carry out an exhaustive analysis, and identify the constitutive relations for the stress tensor and spin current in such a setup, allowing us to write the hydrodynamic equations of motion to second order in derivatives. We then solve the equations of motion in a perturbative setup and find surprisingly good agreement with measurements of global $\Lambda$-hyperon polarization carried out at RHIC.

  109 citations

• A web of 2d dualities: ${\bf Z}_2$ gauge fields and Arf invariants

  Andreas Karch, David Tong, Carl Turner

  SciPost Phys. 7, 007 (2019) · published 10 July 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We describe a web of well-known dualities connecting quantum field theories in $d=1+1$ dimensions. The web is constructed by gauging ${\bf Z}_2$ global symmetries and includes a number of perennial favourites such as the Jordan-Wigner transformation, Kramers-Wannier duality, bosonization of a Dirac fermion, and T-duality. There are also less-loved examples, such as non-modular invariant $c=1$ CFTs that depend on a background spin structure.

  107 citations

• An introduction to spontaneous symmetry breaking

  Aron J. Beekman, Louk Rademaker, Jasper van Wezel

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 11 (2019) · published 4 December 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Perhaps the most important aspect of symmetry in physics is the idea that a state does not need to have the same symmetries as the theory that describes it. This phenomenon is known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. In these lecture notes, starting from a careful definition of symmetry in physics, we introduce symmetry breaking and its consequences. Emphasis is placed on the physics of singular limits, showing the reality of symmetry breaking even in small-sized systems. Topics covered include Nambu-Goldstone modes, quantum corrections, phase transitions, topological defects and gauge fields. We provide many examples from both high energy and condensed matter physics. These notes are suitable for graduate students.

  104 citations

• The Holographic Nature of Null Infinity

  Alok Laddha, Siddharth G. Prabhu, Suvrat Raju, Pushkal Shrivastava

  SciPost Phys. 10, 041 (2021) · published 18 February 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We argue that, in a theory of quantum gravity in a four dimensional asymptotically flat spacetime, all information about massless excitations can be obtained from an infinitesimal neighbourhood of the past boundary of future null infinity and does not require observations over all of future null infinity. Moreover, all information about the state that can be obtained through observations near a cut of future null infinity can also be obtained from observations near any earlier cut although the converse is not true. We provide independent arguments for these two assertions. Similar statements hold for past null infinity. These statements have immediate implications for the information paradox since they suggest that the fine-grained von Neumann entropy of the state defined on a segment $(-\infty,u)$ of future null infinity is independent of u. This is very different from the oft-discussed Page curve that this entropy is sometimes expected to obey. We contrast our results with recent discussions of the Page curve in the context of black hole evaporation, and also discuss the relation of our results to other proposals for holography in flat space.

  102 citations

• Global Symmetries, Counterterms, and Duality in Chern-Simons Matter Theories with Orthogonal Gauge Groups

  Clay Córdova, Po-Shen Hsin, Nathan Seiberg

  SciPost Phys. 4, 021 (2018) · published 29 April 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study three-dimensional gauge theories based on orthogonal groups. Depending on the global form of the group these theories admit discrete $\theta$-parameters, which control the weights in the sum over topologically distinct gauge bundles. We derive level-rank duality for these topological field theories. Our results may also be viewed as level-rank duality for $SO(N)_{K}$ Chern-Simons theory in the presence of background fields for discrete global symmetries. In particular, we include the required counterterms and analysis of the anomalies. We couple our theories to charged matter and determine how these counterterms are shifted by integrating out massive fermions. By gauging discrete global symmetries we derive new boson-fermion dualities for vector matter, and present the phase diagram of theories with two-index tensor fermions, thus extending previous results for $SO(N)$ to other global forms of the gauge group.

  99 citations

• Walking, Weak first-order transitions, and Complex CFTs II. Two-dimensional Potts model at $Q>4$

  Victor Gorbenko, Slava Rychkov, Bernardo Zan

  SciPost Phys. 5, 050 (2018) · published 22 November 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study complex CFTs describing fixed points of the two-dimensional $Q$-state Potts model with $Q>4$. Their existence is closely related to the weak first-order phase transition and walking RG behavior present in the real Potts model at $Q>4$. The Potts model, apart from its own significance, serves as an ideal playground for testing this very general relation. Cluster formulation provides nonperturbative definition for a continuous range of parameter $Q$, while Coulomb gas description and connection to minimal models provide some conformal data of the complex CFTs. We use one and two-loop conformal perturbation theory around complex CFTs to compute various properties of the real walking RG flow. These properties, such as drifting scaling dimensions, appear to be common features of the QFTs with walking RG flows, and can serve as a smoking gun for detecting walking in Monte Carlo simulations. The complex CFTs discussed in this work are perfectly well defined, and can in principle be seen in Monte Carlo simulations with complexified coupling constants. In particular, we predict a pair of $S_5$-symmetric complex CFTs with central charges $c\approx 1.138 \pm 0.021 i$ describing the fixed points of a 5-state dilute Potts model with complexified temperature and vacancy fugacity.

  97 citations

• Matchmakereft: automated tree-level and one-loop matching

  Adrián Carmona, Achilleas Lazopoulos, Pablo Olgoso, José Santiago

  SciPost Phys. 12, 198 (2022) · published 23 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We introduce matchmakereft, a fully automated tool to compute the tree-level and one-loop matching of arbitrary models onto arbitrary effective theories. Matchmakereft performs an off-shell matching, using diagrammatic methods and the background field method when gauge theories are involved. The large redundancy inherent to the off-shell matching together with explicit gauge invariance offers a significant number of non-trivial checks of the results provided. These results are given in the physical basis but several intermediate results, including the matching in the Green basis before and after canonical normalization, are given for flexibility and the possibility of further cross-checks. As a non-trivial example we provide the complete matching in the Warsaw basis up to one loop of an extension of the Standard Model with a charge -1 vector-like lepton singlet. Matchmakereft has been built with generality, flexibility and efficiency in mind. These ingredients allow matchmakereft to have many applications beyond the matching between models and effective theories. Some of these applications include the one-loop renormalization of arbitrary theories (including the calculation of the one-loop renormalization group equations for arbitrary theories); the translation between different Green bases for a fixed effective theory or the check of (off-shell) linear independence of the operators in an effective theory. All these applications are performed in a fully automated way by matchmakereft.

  93 citations

• Exact large-scale correlations in integrable systems out of equilibrium

  Benjamin Doyon

  SciPost Phys. 5, 054 (2018) · published 28 November 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using the theory of generalized hydrodynamics (GHD), we derive exact Euler-scale dynamical two-point correlation functions of conserved densities and currents in inhomogeneous, non-stationary states of many-body integrable systems with weak space-time variations. This extends previous works to inhomogeneous and non-stationary situations. Using GHD projection operators, we further derive formulae for Euler-scale two-point functions of arbitrary local fields, purely from the data of their homogeneous one-point functions. These are new also in homogeneous generalized Gibbs ensembles. The technique is based on combining a fluctuation-dissipation principle along with the exact solution by characteristics of GHD, and gives a recursive procedure able to generate $n$-point correlation functions. Owing to the universality of GHD, the results are expected to apply to quantum and classical integrable field theory such as the sinh-Gordon model and the Lieb-Liniger model, spin chains such as the XXZ and Hubbard models, and solvable classical gases such as the hard rod gas and soliton gases. In particular, we find Leclair-Mussardo-type infinite form-factor series in integrable quantum field theory, and exact Euler-scale two-point functions of exponential fields in the sinh-Gordon model and of powers of the density field in the Lieb-Liniger model. We also analyze correlations in the partitioning protocol, extract large-time asymptotics, and, in free models, derive all Euler-scale $n$-point functions.

  92 citations