Gabriel Cuomo

A bstract: We study energy correlators and other event shapes in states created by operators with large global U(1) charge Q in Conformal Field Theories. Focusing on theories whose large charge sector is described by the superfluid Effective Field Theory (EFT), we develop a systematic framework to compute event shapes within the EFT. As formerly observed, event shapes at leading order in 1/ Q factorize into a product of classical expectation values determined by symmetry. In contrast, the subleading contribution to energy-energy and charge-charge correlators is a nontrivial prediction of the EFT, which we compute explicitly. Our results reveal a sharp collinear enhancement of the correlation between detectors, induced by the propagation of sound. We also generalize our findings to a broad class of event shapes.

We provide a comprehensive picture for the formulation of the perfect fluid in the modern effective field theory formalism at both the classical and quantum level. Due to the necessity of decomposing the hydrodynamical variables (\rho, p, u^\mu) ( ρ , p , u μ ) into other internal degrees of freedom, the procedure is inherently not unique. We discuss and compare the different inequivalent formulations. These theories possess a peculiarity: the presence of an infinite dimensional symmetry implying a vanishing dispersion relation \omega = 0 ω = 0 for the transverse modes. This sets the stage for UV-IR mixing in the quantum theory, which we study in the different formulations focussing on the incompressible limit. We observe that the dispersion relation gets modified by quantum effects to become \omega \propto k^2 ω ∝ k 2 , where the fundamental excitations can be viewed as vortex-anti-vortex pairs. The spectrum exhibits infinitely many types of degenerate quanta. The unusual sensitivity to UV quantum fluctuations renders the implementation of the defining infinite symmetry somewhat subtle. However we present a lattice regularization that preserves a deformed version of such symmetry.

We use effective string theory to study mesons with large spin J in large N _c QCD as rotating open strings. In the first part of this work, we formulate a consistent effective field theory (EFT) for open spinning strings with light quarks. Our EFT provides a consistent treatment of the endpoints’ singularities that arise in the massless limit. We obtain results, in a systematic 1/J expansion, for the spectrum of the leading and daughter Regge trajectories. Interestingly, we find that the redshift factor associated with the quarks’ acceleration implies that the applicability regime of the EFT is narrower compared to that of static flux tubes. In the second part of this work, we discuss several extensions of phenomenological interests, including mesons with heavy quarks, the quarks’ spin and the daughter Regge trajectories associated with the worldsheet axion, a massive string mode identified in lattice simulations of 4d flux tubes. We compare our predictions with 4d QCD spectroscopy data, and suggest potential stringy interpretations of the observed mesons. We finally comment on the relation between the EFT spectrum and the Axionic String Ansatz, a recently proposed characterization of the spectrum of Yang-Mills glueballs.

A bstract: Conformal field theories that exhibit spontaneous breaking of conformal symmetry (a moduli space of vacua) must satisfy a set of bootstrap constraints, involving the usual data (scaling dimensions and OPE coefficients) as well as new data such as the spectrum of asymptotic states in the broken vacuum and form factors. The simplest bootstrap equation arises by expanding a two-point function of local operators in two channels, at short distance using the OPE and at large distance using the EFT in the broken vacuum. We illustrate this equation in what is arguably the simplest perturbative model that exhibits conformal symmetry breaking, namely the real ABC model in d = 4 − ϵ dimensions. We investigate the convergence properties of the bootstrap equation and check explicitly many of the non-trivial relations that it imposes on theory data.

We perform Monte-Carlo measurements of two and three-point functions of charged operators in the critical O(2) model in 3 dimensions. Our results are compatible with the predictions of the large charge superfluid effective field theory. To obtain reliable measurements for large values of the charge, we improved the Worm algorithm and devised a measurement scheme which mitigates the uncertainties due to lattice and finite size effects.

Coleman’s theorem states that continuous internal symmetries cannot be spontaneously broken in two-dimensional quantum field theories (QFTs). In this work we consider surface (i.e. two-dimensional) defects in d-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs) invariant under a continuous internal symmetry group G. We study under which conditions it is possible for a surface defect to break spontaneously a continuous internal symmetry. We find that spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is impossible under reasonable assumptions on the defect Renormalization Group (RG) flow. Counterexamples are possible only for exotic RG flows, that do not terminate at a fixed-point. We discuss an example of this kind. We also illustrate our no-go result with an effective field theory analysis of generic defect RG flows. We find a generic weakly coupled defect universality class (with no SSB), where correlation functions decay logarithmically. Our analysis generalizes the recent discovery by Metlitski of the extraordinary-log boundary universality class in the O(N) model.