English

Large $N$ analytical functional bootstrap I: 1D CFTs and total positivity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2023-08-09 v2

Abstract

We initiate the analytical functional bootstrap study of conformal field theories with large NN limits. In this first paper we particularly focus on the 1D O(N)O(N) vector bootstrap. We obtain a remarkably simple bootstrap equation from the O(N)O(N) vector crossing equations in the large NN 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 SL(2,R)SL(2,\mathbb{R}) conformal block plays a critical role. We prove the SL(2,R)SL(2,\mathbb{R}) conformal block is totally positive for large scaling dimension Δ\Delta and show that the total positivity is violated below a critical value ΔTP0.32315626\Delta_{\textrm{TP}}^*\approx 0.32315626. The conformal block forms a surprisingly sophisticated mathematical structure, which for instance can violate total positivity at the order 10565410^{-5654} for a normal value Δ=0.1627\Delta=0.1627! We construct a series of analytical functionals {αM}\{\alpha_M\} which satisfy the bootstrap positive conditions up to a range ΔΛM\Delta\leqslant \Lambda_M. The functionals {αM}\{\alpha_M\} have a trivial large MM limit. Surprisingly, due to total positivity, they can approach the large MM limit in a way consistent with the bootstrap positive conditions for arbitrarily high ΛM\Lambda_M, 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 NN 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

R2 v1 2026-06-28T08:01:32.565Z