English

Light-ray sum rules and the c-anomaly

High Energy Physics - Theory 2024-05-17 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

In a four-dimensional quantum field theory that flows between two fixed points under the renormalization group, the change in the conformal anomaly Δa\Delta a has been related to the average null energy. We extend this result to derive a sum rule for the other anomaly coefficient, Δc\Delta c, in terms of the stress tensor three-point function. While the sum rule for Δa\Delta a is an expectation value of the averaged null energy operator, and therefore positive, the result for Δc\Delta c involves the off-diagonal matrix elements, so it does not have a fixed sign.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.10137,
  title  = {Light-ray sum rules and the c-anomaly},
  author = {Thomas Hartman and Grégoire Mathys},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.10137},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T16:29:36.082Z