Analytic Studies of Fermions in the Conformal Bootstrap

TL;DR

This thesis advances the analytic conformal bootstrap for fermionic operators in 3D conformal field theories, providing new spectral data and comparing methods to improve nonperturbative calculations.

Contribution

It introduces novel analytic techniques for fermionic correlators, expanding the conformal bootstrap's applicability beyond scalar operators.

Findings

Computed nonperturbative correction terms inaccessible by previous methods

Demonstrated the superiority of Lorentzian inversion formula over large spin expansions

Provided new spectral data for fermionic conformal field theories

Abstract

In this thesis, we analyze unitary conformal field theories in three dimensional spaces by applying analytic conformal bootstrap techniques to correlation functions of non-scalar operators, in particular Majorana fermions. Via the analysis of these correlation functions, we access several sectors in the spectrum of conformal field theories that have been previously unexplored with analytic methods, and we provide new data for several operator families. In the first part of the thesis, we achieve this by the large spin expansions that have been traditionally used in the conformal bootstrap program for scalar correlators, whereas in the second part we carry out the computations by combining several analytic tools that have been recently developed such as weight shifting operators, harmonic analysis for the Euclidean conformal group, and the Lorentzian inversion formula. We compare these methods and demonstrate the superiority of the latter by computing nonperturbative correction terms that are inaccessible in the former. A better analytic grasp of the spectrum of fermionic conformal field theories can help in many directions including making new precise analytic predictions for supersymmetric models, computing the binding energies of fermions in curved space, and describing quantum phase transitions in condensed matter systems with emergent Lorentz symmetry.