Open AccessUnitarity Bounds and RG Flows in Time Dependent Quantum Field Theory
Author(s) -
Xiaoli Dong,
Bart Horn,
Eva Silverstein,
Gonzalo Torroba
Publication year - 2012
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
DOI - 10.2172/1037997
Subject(s) - unitarity , spacetime , quantum field theory , physics , conformal field theory , field (mathematics) , operator (biology) , mathematical physics , scaling , scaling dimension , field theory (psychology) , theoretical physics , conformal map , quantum mechanics , mathematics , mathematical analysis , pure mathematics , gene , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry , repressor , transcription factor
We generalize unitarity bounds on operator dimensions in conformal field theory to field theories with spacetime dependent couplings. Below the energy scale of spacetime variation of the couplings, their evolution can strongly affect the physics, effectively shifting the infrared operator scaling and unitarity bounds determined from correlation functions in the theory. We analyze this explicitly for large-N double-trace flows, and connect these to UV complete field theories. One motivating class of examples comes from our previous work on FRW holography, where this effect explains the range of flavors allowed in the dual, time dependent, field theory