Related papers: Towards the classification of conformal field theo…
Some recent ideas are generalized from four dimensions to the general dimension n. In quantum field theory, two terms of the trace anomaly in external gravity, the Euler density G_n and Box^{n/2-1}R, are relevant to the problem of quantum…
The trace anomaly in external gravity is the sum of three terms at criticality: the square of the Weyl tensor, the Euler density and Box R, with coefficients, properly normalized, called c, a and a', the latter being ambiguously defined by…
Recent conjectures of the c-theorem in four and higher dimensions have suggested that the coefficient of the Euler characteristic in the trace anomaly could measure the degrees of freedom in field theory and decrease along the…
We present a proof of the irreversibility of renormalization group flows, i.e. the c-theorem for unitary, renormalizable theories in four (or generally even) dimensions. Using Ward identities for scale transformations and spectral…
The general form of the stress-tensor three-point function in four dimensions is obtained by solving the Ward identities for the diffeomorphism and Weyl symmetries. Several properties of this correlator are discussed, such as the…
A conformal field theory (CFT) in dimension $d\geq 3$ coupled to a planar, two-dimensional, conformal defect is characterized in part by a "central charge" $b$ that multiplies the Euler density in the defect's Weyl anomaly. For defect…
We study two-dimensional spherical defects in d-dimensional Conformal Field Theories. We argue that the Renormalization Group (RG) flows on such defects admit the existence of a decreasing entropy function. At the fixed points of the flow,…
For quantum field theories that flow between ultraviolet and infrared fixed points, central functions, defined from two-point correlators of the stress tensor and conserved currents, interpolate between central charges of the UV and IR…
We re-examine holographic versions of the c-theorem and entanglement entropy in the context of higher curvature gravity and the AdS/CFT correspondence. We select the gravity theories by tuning the gravitational couplings to eliminate…
I review my explanation of the irreversibility of the renormalization-group flow in even dimensions greater than two and address new investigations and tests.
The one-loop structure of the trace anomaly is investigated using different regularizations and renormalization schemes: dimensional, proper time and Pauli-Villars. The universality of this anomaly is analyzed from a very general…
Fluid turbulence is a far-from-equilibrium phenomenon and remains one of the most challenging problems in physics. Two-dimensional, fully developed turbulence may possess the largest possible symmetry, the conformal symmetry. We focus on…
Higher curvature corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert term may play an important role in probing the strong-field regime of gravity. In this letter, we demonstrate that the local effective action reproducing the trace anomaly can resemble…
We construct novel conformal sigma models in three dimensions. Nonlinear sigma models in three dimensions are nonrenormalizable in perturbation theory. We use Wilsonian renormalization group equation method to find the fixed points.…
A flow invariant in quantum field theory is a quantity that does not depend on the flow connecting the UV and IR conformal fixed points. We study the flow invariance of the most general sum rule with correlators of the trace Theta of the…
The trace anomaly and anomaly-induced action are evaluated for the two-dimensional $2D$ vector theory with classical conformal symmetry. Implementing local conformal symmetry while preserving the gauge invariance requires either giving up…
We consider line defects in d-dimensional Conformal Field Theories (CFTs). The ambient CFT places nontrivial constraints on Renormalization Group (RG) flows on such line defects. We show that the flow on line defects is consequently…
Applying the Exact Renormalization Group to scalar field theory in Euclidean space of general (not necessarily integer) dimension, it is proven that the only fixed-point with vanishing anomalous dimension is the Gaussian one. The proof…
We consider a generalization of the two-dimensional Liouville conformal field theory to any number of even dimensions. The theories consist of a log-correlated scalar field with a background $\mathcal{Q}$-curvature charge and an exponential…
We show that for four dimensional gauge theories in the conformal window, the Euler anomaly, known as the $a$-function, can be computed from a $2$-point function of the trace of the energy momentum tensor making it more amenable to lattice…