Séminaire de Physique Théorique

Three Lectures on Causality in Conformal Field Theory (1/3)

by Prof. Sandipan Kundu (Johns Hopkins University & IHES)

Europe/Paris
Amphithéâtre Léon Motchane (IHES)

Amphithéâtre Léon Motchane

IHES

Le Bois Marie 35, route de Chartres 91440 Bures-sur-Yvette
Description

Causality places nontrivial constraints on QFT in Lorentzian signature, for example fixing the signs of certain terms in the low energy Lagrangian. In these pedagogical lectures, I will explore causality constraints on conformal field theory. First, I will show how causality is encoded in crossing symmetry and reflection positivity of Euclidean correlators, and derive constraints on the interactions of low-lying operators directly from the conformal bootstrap. Then, I will explain the connection between these causality constraints and the averaged null energy condition. Finally, I will use causality to show that the averaged null energy is positive in interacting quantum field theory in flat spacetime. Based on arXiv:1509.00014arXiv:1601.07904arXiv:1610.05308.

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