The analytic structure of the fixed charge expansion

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the analytic properties of the fixed charge expansion in conformal field theories like O(N) and QED_3, revealing divergent series, resurgence phenomena, and stability insights across different dimensions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed study of the fixed charge expansion's analytic structure, applying resurgence techniques and uncovering differences between models and dimensions.

Findings

Large charge expansion in 3D is non-Borel summable with instanton-related singularities.

In 4D, the series converges and exhibits a new branch cut affecting stability.

QED_3's large charge dimensions are Borel summable and differ from O(N) results.

Abstract

We investigate the analytic properties of the fixed charge expansion for a number of conformal field theories in different space-time dimensions. The models investigated here are $O(N)$ and $QED_3$. We show that in $d=3-\epsilon$ dimensions the contribution to the $O(N)$ fixed charge $Q$ conformal dimensions obtained in the double scaling limit of large charge and vanishing $\epsilon$ is non-Borel summable, doubly factorial divergent, and with order $\sqrt{Q}$ optimal truncation order. By using resurgence techniques we show that the singularities in the Borel plane are related to worldline instantons that were discovered in the other double scaling limit of large $Q$ and $N$ of Ref. [1]. In $d=4-\epsilon$ dimensions the story changes since in the same large $Q$ and small $\epsilon$ regime the next order corrections to the scaling dimensions lead to a convergent series. The resummed series displays a new branch cut singularity which is relevant for the stability of the $O(N)$ large charge sector for negative $\epsilon$. Although the $QED_3$ model shares the same large charge behaviour of the $O(N)$ model, we discover that at leading order in the large number of matter field expansion the large charge scaling dimensions are Borel summable, single factorial divergent, and with order $Q$ optimal truncation order.