QFT from CFT

Speaker: Matthew Walters , CERN

When: October 16, 2019 (Wed), 04:15PM to 05:15PM (add to my calendar)
Location: PRB 595

This event is part of the HET Seminar Series.

Quantum field theories describe RG flows between fixed points." This slogan provides a very useful qualitative picture, but we would like to make this statement more concrete and (ideally) more useful quantitatively. I will discuss a new proposed method for realizing this goal, which uses data from UV fixed points (i.e. CFTs) to numerically compute dynamical observables in more general strongly-coupled QFTs. This approach uses low-dimension operators from the UV CFT to approximate the low energy eigenstates of the full QFT Hamiltonian, allowing us to study dynamics even at strong coupling. After presenting a general framework which can be applied to QFTs in any number of dimensions, I will then discuss its application to a particular 2D example where we can compare with known qualitative results, as well as recent ideas for applying this framework to gauge theories, including QCD.