Accidental symmetries and the conformal bootstrap

Shai M. Chester, Simone Giombi, Luca V. Iliesiu, Igor R. Klebanov, Silviu S. Pufu, Ran Yacoby

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47 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study an N = 2 supersymmetric generalization of the three-dimensional critical O(N) vector model that is described by N +1 chiral superfields with superpotential W = g1X ∑i Z2i + g2X3. By combining the tools of the conformal bootstrap with results obtained through supersymmetric localization, we argue that this model exhibits a symmetry enhancement at the infrared superconformal fixed point due to g2 flowing to zero. This example is special in that the existence of an infrared fixed point with g1, g2 ≠ 0, which does not exhibit symmetry enhancement, does not generally lead to any obvious unitarity violations or other inconsistencies. We do show, however, that the F -theorem excludes the models with g1, g2 ≠ 0 for N > 5. The conformal bootstrap provides a stronger constraint and excludes such models for N > 2. We provide evidence that the g2 = 0 models, which have the enhanced O(N) × U(1) symmetry, come close to saturating the bootstrap bounds. We extend our analysis to fractional dimensions where we can motivate the nonexistence of the g1, g2 ≠ 0 models by studying them perturbatively in the 4 − ɛ expansion.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number110
JournalJournal of High Energy Physics
Volume2016
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2016

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Keywords

  • Conformal and W symmetry
  • Global symmetries
  • Supersymmetry and duality

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