Semiclassical description of CFT with large charge

by Alexander Monin (EPFL)

Tuesday 27 Sept 2016, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

4/S-030 (CERN)

Notice unusual location It was observed by Hellerman et al. [1] that certain 3-dimensional CFTs with global U(1) symmetry admit a semiclassical description in the sector of large charge. Dimensions of scalar operators in this case can be determined by compactifying the CFT on a 2-dimensional sphere with large charge density, which can be viewed as spontaneous breaking of global U(1) symmetry and time translations. The low energy dynamics is universally determined — with quantum corrections controlled by the inverse of the density — by a Lagrangian for the corresponding Goldstone mode. In this talk I will present a systematic approach of building low energy Lagrangians (sigma-models) describing configurations with large charge, generalizing results of [1] for other symmetry groups.