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Universal Bounds on Operator Dimensions in General 2D Conformal Field Theories

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-08-04 v1

Abstract

We derive a bound on the conformal dimensions of the lightest few states in general unitary 2d conformal field theories with discrete spectra using modular invariance, including CFTs with chiral currents. We derive a bound on the conformal dimensions Δ1\Delta_1 and Δ2\Delta_2 going as ctot/12+O(1)c_{\rm tot}/12 + O(1). The bound is of the same form found for CFTs without chiral currents in arXiv:0902.2790 and arXiv:1312.0038. We then prove the inequality Δnctot/12+O(1)\Delta_n \leq c_{\rm tot}/12 + O(1) for large ctotc_{\rm tot} and with appropriate restrictions on nn. Using the AdS3_3/CFT2_2 correspondence, our bounds correspond to upper bounds on the masses of the lightest few states and a lower bound on the number of states. We conclude by checking our results against several candidate conformal field theories.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1508.00548,
  title  = {Universal Bounds on Operator Dimensions in General 2D Conformal Field Theories},
  author = {Joshua D. Qualls},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.00548},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

24 pages; extension of (and thus overlap with) arXiv:0902.2790 and arXiv:1312.0038

R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:25:23.604Z