Graviton Scattering and a Sum Rule for the c Anomaly in 4D CFT

by Markus Luty (University of California Davis)

Tuesday 27 Feb 2018, 14:00 → 16:00 Europe/Zurich

4/3-006 - TH Conference Room (CERN)

4D CFTs have a scale anomaly characterized by the coefficient c, which appears as the coefficient of logarithmic terms in momentum space correlation functions of the energy-momentum tensor. By studying the CFT contribution to 4-point graviton scattering amplitudes in Minkowski space we derive a sum rule for c in terms of TTO OPE coefficients. The sum rule can be thought of as a version of the optical theorem, and its validity depends on the existence of the massless and forward limits of the <TTTT> correlation functions that contribute. The finiteness of these limits is checked explicitly for free scalar, fermion, and vector CFTs. The sum rule gives c as a sum of positive terms and therefore implies a lower bound on c given any lower bound on TTO OPE coefficients. We compute the coefficients to the sum rule for arbitrary operators of spin 0 and 2, including the energy-momentum tensor.