Superconformal models for graphene and boundary central charges

• Published in: The journal of high energy physics Vol. 2018; no. 9; pp. 1 - 39
• Main Authors: Herzog, Christopher P., Huang, Kuo-Wei, Shamir, Itamar, Virrueta, Julio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.09.2018; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Anomalies in Field and String Theories; Classical and Quantum Gravitation; Conformal Field Theory; Coupling; Dependence; Elementary Particles; Field theory; Graphene; High energy physics; Perturbation theory; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum Field Theories; Quantum Field Theory; Quantum Physics; Regular Article - Theoretical Physics; Relativity Theory; String Theory; Supersymmetric Gauge Theory; Supersymmetry; Anomalies in Field and String Theories; Conformal Field Theory; Supersymmetric Gauge Theory
• ISSN: 1029-8479; 1029-8479
• DOI: 10.1007/JHEP09(2018)161

A bstract In the context of boundary conformal field theory, we investigate whether the boundary trace anomaly can depend on marginal directions in the presence of supersymmetry. Recently, it was found that a graphene-like non-supersymmetric conformal field theory with a four-dimensional bulk photon and a three-dimensional boundary electron has two boundary central charges that depend on an exactly marginal direction, namely the gauge coupling. In this work, we supersymmetrize this theory, paying special attention to the boundary terms required by supersymmetry. We study models with 4, 8, and 16 Poincaré supercharges in the bulk, half of which are broken by the boundary. In all cases, we find that at all orders in perturbation theory, the gauge coupling is not renormalized, providing strong evidence that these theories are boundary conformal field theories. Moreover, the boundary central charges depend on the coupling. One possible exception to this dependence on marginal directions is that the difference between the two charges is coupling independent at one-loop in the maximally supersymmetric case. In our analysis, a possible boundary Chern-Simons term is incorporated by a bulk θ -term.