Rotating superfluids and spinning charged operators in conformal field theory

TL;DR

This paper studies large charge and spin operators in 2+1D conformal field theories, revealing their superfluid vortex structures and calculating related correlation functions.

Contribution

It provides a systematic effective field theory approach to analyze operators with large charge and spin, identifying distinct vortex regimes in superfluid states.

Findings

Operators with large charge/spin correspond to superfluids with vortices

Superfluid states transition through three regimes as spin increases

Correlation functions involving these operators are explicitly calculated

Abstract

We calculate the scaling dimensions of operators with large global charge and spin in 2+1 dimensional conformal field theories. By the state-operator correspondence, these operators correspond to superfluids with vortices and can be systematically studied using effective field theory. As the spin increases from zero to the unitarity bound, the superfluid state corresponding to the lowest dimension operator passes through three distinct regimes: (1) a single phonon, (2) two vortices, and (3) multiple vortices. We also calculate correlation functions with two such operators and the Noether current.