Universal lowest-twist in CFTs from holography

• Published in: The journal of high energy physics Vol. 2019; no. 8; pp. 1 - 54
• Main Authors: Fitzpatrick, A. Liam, Huang, Kuo-Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.08.2019; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Berlin; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: AdS-CFT Correspondence; ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Boundary conditions; Classical and Quantum Gravitation; CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; Conformal Field Theory; Elementary Particles; Field Theories in Higher Dimensions; Gravitation theory; High energy physics; Holography; Mathematical analysis; Operators (mathematics); Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum Field Theories; Quantum Field Theory; Quantum Physics; Regular Article - Theoretical Physics; Relativity Theory; String Theory; Supersymmetry; Tensors; Thermal expansion; AdS-CFT Correspondence; Conformal Field Theory; Field Theories in Higher Dimensions
• DOI: 10.1007/JHEP08(2019)138
• ISSN: 1029-8479

A bstract We probe the conformal block structure of a scalar four-point function in d ≥ 2 conformal field theories by including higher-order derivative terms in a bulk gravitational action. We consider a heavy-light four-point function as the boundary correlator at large central charge. Such a four-point function can be computed, on the gravity side, as a two-point function of the light operator in a black hole geometry created by the heavy operator. We consider analytically solving the corresponding scalar field equation in a near-boundary expansion and find that the multi-stress tensor conformal blocks are insensitive to the horizon boundary condition. The main result of this paper is that the lowest-twist operator product expansion (OPE) coefficients of the multi-stress tensor conformal blocks are universal: they are fixed by the dimension of the light operators and the ratio between the dimension of the heavy operator and the central charge C T . Neither supersymmetry nor unitary is assumed. Higher-twist coefficients, on the other hand, generally are not protected. A recursion relation allows us to efficiently compute universal lowest-twist coefficients. The universality result hints at the potential existence of a higher-dimensional Virasoro-like symmetry near the lightcone. While we largely focus on the planar black hole limit in this paper, we include some preliminary analysis of the spherical black hole case in an appendix.