English

QFT as a set of ODEs: higher dimensions

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-06-30 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Correlation functions of local operators in Quantum Field Theory (QFT) in Anti-de Sitter space (AdS) are completely fixed by the QFT data: the set of scaling dimensions Δi\Delta_i and OPE coefficients CijkC_{ijk} of the boundary operators, and the bulk-boundary (BOE) coefficients biΦ^b^{\hat\Phi}_i encoding how bulk fields decompose into boundary operators. In this work, we generalize the ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that govern the variation of the QFT data under a bulk relevant deformation, originally derived for AdS2_2 \cite{Loparco:2026fki}, to the cases of AdS3_3 and AdS4_4. We demonstrate that these flow equations natively capture the mechanism of merger-annihilation when a boundary operator hits marginality, as well as level repulsion when different Δi\Delta_i's approach each other. Furthermore, we address the practical implementation of the framework: we propose substituting the ODE for the OPE coefficients with the crossing equation for greater efficiency, and we observe that Pad\'e approximants dramatically improve the convergence of the sums over boundary operators, at least in free theories. Altogether, these advances lay the groundwork for the future application of the flow equations to the study of strongly coupled QFTs in AdS and their flat space limits.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.00079,
  title  = {QFT as a set of ODEs: higher dimensions},
  author = {Fabiana De Cesare and Manuel Loparco},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.00079},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

58 pages + 5 appendices, 18 figures, one ancillary Mathematica file;