Chern–Simons theory with vector fermion matter

Abstract

We study three dimensional conformal field theories described by U (N ) Chern-Simons theory at level k coupled to massless fermions in the fundamental representation. By solving a Schwinger-Dyson equation in lightcone gauge, we compute the exact planar free energy of the theory at finite temperature on R 2 as a function of the 't Hooft coupling λ = N/k. Employing a dimensional reduction regularization scheme, we find that the free energy vanishes at |λ| = 1; the conformal theory does not exist for |λ| > 1. We analyze the operator spectrum via the anomalous conservation relation for higher spin currents, and in particular show that the higher spin currents do not develop anomalous dimensions at leading order in 1/N . We present an integral equation whose solution in principle determines all correlators of these currents at leading order in 1/N and present explicit perturbative results for all three point functions up to two loops. We also discuss a lightcone Hamiltonian formulation of this theory where a W ∞ algebra arises. The maximally supersymmetric version of our theory is ABJ model with one gauge group taken to be U (1), demonstrating that a pure higher spin gauge theory arises as a limit of string theory.

A master bosonization duality

“…They are crucial actors in mapping out the phase diagram of QCD 3 as well as some of its cousins. At large N, k, with N/k finite, they are dual to a peculiar theory of gravity known as Vasiliev theory [4][5][6]. These theories are in fact solvable in this limit, and much is known of their thermal physics and scattering amplitudes [4][5][6][19][20][21].…”

“…At large N, k, with N/k finite, they are dual to a peculiar theory of gravity known as Vasiliev theory [4][5][6]. These theories are in fact solvable in this limit, and much is known of their thermal physics and scattering amplitudes [4][5][6][19][20][21]. Away from N = k = N f = 1, they imply a web of dualities for gauge theories with product gauge groups and (bi)fundamental matter [22], known as quiver gauge theories, and have been embedded intro string theory [23] (see also [24]).…”

“…As in the SU(N ) theories there are mesons 5) which remain light at large N with a dimension that scales as O(N 0 ). All of these operators carry zero monopole number and only the second is charged under U(1) F .…”

“…There has been an accumulation of evidence this decade for dualities between nonsupersymmetric Chern-Simons theories coupled to fundamental matter [4][5][6][7][8]. These conjectured dualities may be thought of as taking the level/rank dualities, adding suitable matter content on both sides, and tuning to a conformal field theory (CFT).…”

One-loop effective actions and higher spins. Part II

“…Other topics, such as the discussion of the ambiguities inherent in the choice of the conserved currents in the initial matter model, will be included in a subsequent article. This is a good point to mention that our research is indebted to several preexisting works, in particular with [17][18][19] as far as the inspiration is concerned, with [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] as far as the methods are concerned and with [4,5,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] for HS theories. Other papers of ours, related to the present one are, beside [1,42,43].…”