English

Inverse Bootstrapping Conformal Field Theories

High Energy Physics - Theory 2018-01-19 v3 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We propose a novel approach to study conformal field theories (CFTs) in general dimensions. In the conformal bootstrap program, one usually searches for consistent CFT data that satisfy crossing symmetry. In the new approach, we reverse the logic and interpret manifestly crossing-symmetric functions as generating functions of conformal data. Physical CFTs can be obtained by scanning the space of symmetric functions. By truncating the fusion rules, we are able to concentrate on the low-lying operators and derive some approximate relations for their conformal data. It turns out that the free scalar theory, the 2d minimal model CFTs, the ϕ4\phi^{4} Wilson-Fisher CFT, the Lee-Yang CFTs and the Ising CFTs are consistent with the universal relations from the minimal fusion rule ϕ1×ϕ1=I+ϕ2+T\phi_1\times \phi_1=I+\phi_2+T, where ϕ1,ϕ2\phi_1,\,\phi_2 are scalar operators, II is the identity operator and TT is the stress tensor.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1706.04054,
  title  = {Inverse Bootstrapping Conformal Field Theories},
  author = {Wenliang Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.04054},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

38 pages, 2 figures. v2: 39 pages, 2 figures, typos fixed, references added, names of cutoffs changed, emphasis added about the convergence of the truncation ansatz. v3: typos fixed, final version

R2 v1 2026-06-22T20:17:29.790Z