Related papers: Surface Defect, Anomalies and $b$-Extremization
When conformal field theories (CFTs) are perturbed by marginally relevant deformations, renormalization group (RG) flows ensue that can be studied with perturbative methods, at least as long as they remain close to the original CFT. In this…
We show that the 't Hooft anomaly of a quantum field theory with continuous flavor symmetry can be detected from rearrangements of the topological defect webs implementing the global symmetry in general spacetime dimension, which is…
Fracton phases are new types of phases of matter characterized by subsystem global symmetry, which is a generalized global symmetry whose symmetry operator is partially topological. Their continuum low-energy effective descriptions admit…
Motivated by its potential use in constraining the structure of 6D renormalization group flows, we determine the low energy dilaton-axion effective field theory of conformal and global symmetry breaking in 6D conformal field theories…
We investigate the emergence of locality in infrared (IR) physics, which indicates an asymmetric renormalization group (RG) flow from a $d$-dimensional ultraviolet (UV) conformal field theory (CFT) to a lower-dimensional IR effective…
We consider topological defect lines (TDLs) in two-dimensional conformal field theories. Generalizing and encompassing both global symmetries and Verlinde lines, TDLs together with their attached defect operators provide models of fusion…
Impurities are ubiquitous in condensed matter. Boundary Conformal Field Theory (BCFT) provides a powerful method to study a localized quantum impurity interacting with a gapless continuum of excitations. The results can also be implied to…
We propose an effective conformal field theory (CFT) description of steady state incompressible fluid turbulence at the inertial range of scales in any number of spatial dimensions. We derive a KPZ-type equation for the anomalous scaling of…
Defects are common in physical systems with boundaries, impurities or extensive measurements. The interaction between bulk and defect can lead to rich physical phenomena. Defects in gapless phases of matter with conformal symmetry usually…
We study an $O(N)$ invariant surface defect in the Wilson-Fisher conformal field theory (CFT) in $d=4-\epsilon$ dimensions. This defect is defined by mass deformation on a two-dimensional surface that generates localized disorder and is…
Orbifolds of two-dimensional quantum field theories have a natural formulation in terms of defects or domain walls. This perspective allows for a rich generalisation of the orbifolding procedure, which we study in detail for the case of…
We explore a $C$-theorem in defect conformal field theories (DCFTs) that unify all the known conjectures and theorems until now. We examine as a candidate $C$-function the additional contributions from conformal defects to the sphere free…
We consider defect operators in scalar field theories in dimensions $d=4-\epsilon $ and $d=6-\epsilon$ with self-interactions given by a general marginal potential. In a double scaling limit, where the bulk couplings go to zero and the…
Much insight into the dynamics of quantum field theories can be gained by studying the relationship between field theories in different dimensions. An interesting observation is that when two theories are related by dimensional reduction on…
We study renormalization group flows between six-dimensional superconformal field theories (SCFTs) using their geometric realizations as singular limits of F-theory compactified on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds. There are two…
A general analysis of line defect renormalisation group (RG) flows in the $\varepsilon$ expansion below $d=4$ dimensions is undertaken. The defect beta function for general scalar-fermion bulk theories is computed to next-to-leading order…
We study gauging operations (or group extensions) in (smeared) boundary conformal field theories (BCFTs) and bulk conformal field theories, and their applications to various phenomena in topologically ordered systems. We apply the resultant…
Dynamical quantum field theories (QFTs), such as those in which spacetimes are equipped with a metric and/or a field in the form of a smooth map to a target manifold, can be formulated axiomatically using the language of…
We discuss the geometric origin of discrete higher form symmetries of quantum field theories in terms of defect groups from geometric engineering in M-theory. The flux non-commutativity in M-theory gives rise to (mixed) 't Hooft anomalies…
Conformal field theory (CFT) is an extremely powerful tool for explicitly computing critical exponents and correlation functions of statistical mechanics systems at a second order phase transition, or of condensed matter systems at a…