High Energy Theory Seminar

The four-point function of a heavy operator in a CFT can describe two semiclassical objects propagating in AdS. The simplest possibility is that, like geodesics in empty AdS, the two objects do not interact at leading order. In this case the leading logarithm of the correlator is fixed by the identity and its crossing image. We call this behavior liberation, and I will ask when the bootstrap guarantees it. Subexponential growth of the correlator at the diagonal crossing-symmetric point is equivalent both to sparseness of the light spectrum (the analog of the Hartman–Keller–Stoica condition for the torus) and to liberation on two disjoint wedges of the causal diamond. A condition on twists extends liberation to everything outside an open band around the crossing-symmetric line. The band is not an artifact of the method, since inside it composites of large-spin constituents have a phase in which the connected correlator dominates, even in free theory. A gas of heavy fragments can also be liberated, and finer observables distinguish bulk states that are localized, quasi-localized, or delocalized. In two dimensions, liberation fails unless the central charge grows faster than the operator dimension. I will conclude by discussing the open problem of "huge" operators whose dimension is of order the central charge.
Based on work with Sridip Pal (2610.XXXXX) and with David Poland (2603.28853).

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

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