Large $N$ analytical functional bootstrap I: 1D CFTs and total positivity
Abstract
We initiate the analytical functional bootstrap study of conformal field theories with large limits. In this first paper we particularly focus on the 1D vector bootstrap. We obtain a remarkably simple bootstrap equation from the vector crossing equations in the large limit. The bootstrap bound is saturated by the generalized free field theory. We study the analytical extremal functionals of this crossing equation, for which the total positivity of the conformal block plays a critical role. We prove the conformal block is totally positive for large scaling dimension and show that the total positivity is violated below a critical value . The conformal block forms a surprisingly sophisticated mathematical structure, which for instance can violate total positivity at the order for a normal value ! We construct a series of analytical functionals which satisfy the bootstrap positive conditions up to a range . The functionals have a trivial large limit. Surprisingly, due to total positivity, they can approach the large limit in a way consistent with the bootstrap positive conditions for arbitrarily high , therefore proving the bootstrap bound analytically. Our result provides a concrete example to illustrate how the analytical properties of the conformal block lead to nontrivial bootstrap bounds. We expect this work paves the way for large analytical functional bootstrap in higher dimensions.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2301.01311,
title = {Large $N$ analytical functional bootstrap I: 1D CFTs and total positivity},
author = {Zhijin Li},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.01311},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
v1: 48 pages, 9 figures; v2: refs added, typos corrected, added an estimation of the critical value for total positivity