Conformality and self-duality of $N_f=2$ QED$_3$

TL;DR

This paper investigates the infrared phase of 3D QED with two fermion flavors, using conformal bootstrap to test its self-duality and conformality, and finds evidence against the conformal phase suggested by previous lattice results.

Contribution

It applies conformal bootstrap techniques to analyze the monopole operator correlators in $N_f=2$ QED$_3$, providing nonperturbative constraints and challenging prior lattice-based conformal assumptions.

Findings

Previous lattice CFT data can be ruled out with bootstrap assumptions.

The IR phase of $N_f=2$ QED$_3$ is likely not conformal.

Evidence supports the theory's self-duality and symmetry enhancement.

Abstract

We study the IR phase of three dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED$_3$) coupled to $N_f=2$ flavors of two-component Dirac fermions, which has been controversial for decades. This theory has been proposed to be self-dual with symmetry enhancement $(SU(2)_f\times U(1)_t )/\mathbb{Z}_2\rightarrow O(4)$ at the IR fixed point. We focus on the four-point correlator of monopole operators with unit topological charge of $U(1)_t$. We illustrate the $O(4)\rightarrow SU(2)_f\times U(1)_t $ branching rules based on an $O(4)$ symmetric positive structure in the monopole four-point crossing equations. We use conformal bootstrap method to derive nonperturbative constraints on the CFT data and test the conformality and self-duality of $N_f=2$ QED$_3$. In particular we find the CFT data obtained from previous lattice simulations can be ruled out by introducing irrelevant assumptions in the spectrum, indicating the IR phase of $N_f=2$ QED$_3$ is not conformal.