Bootstrapping $N_f=4$ conformal QED$_3$

TL;DR

This paper uses conformal bootstrap methods to study the IR fixed point of QED$_3$ with four fermions, constraining operator dimensions and central charges, and finding consistency with perturbative results.

Contribution

It introduces a bootstrap analysis of QED$_3$ with $N_f=4$, constraining operator dimensions and central charges, and incorporating novel positivity constraints.

Findings

Operator dimensions form a closed allowed island.

Bounds on central charges agree with perturbative estimates.

Part of the $1/N_f$ expansion results are self-consistent at $N_f=4$.

Abstract

We present the results of a conformal bootstrap study of the presumed unitary IR fixed point of quantum electrodynamics in three dimensions (QED$_3$) coupled to $N_f=4$ two-component Dirac fermions. Specifically, we study the four-point correlators of the $SU(4)$ adjoint fermion bilinear $r$ and the monopole of lowest topological charge $\mathcal{M}_{1/2}$. Most notably, the scaling dimensions of the fermion bilinear $r$ and the monopole $\mathcal{M}_{1/2}$ are found to be constrained into a closed island with a combination of spectrum assumptions inspired by the $1/N_f$ perturbative results as well as a novel interval positivity constraint on the next-lowest-charge monopole $\mathcal{M}_1$. Bounds in this island on the $SU(4)$ and topological $U(1)_t$ conserved current central charges $c_J$, $c_J^t$, as well as on the stress tensor central charge $c_T$, are comfortably consistent with the perturbative results. Together with the scaling dimensions, this suggests that a part of estimates from the $1/N_f$ expansion -- even at $N_f=4$ -- provide a self-consistent solution to the bootstrap crossing relations, despite some of our assumptions not being strictly justified.