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arXiv:2411.00978 · Physical Review Letters

Thermal Bootstrap for the Critical O ( N ) Model

Julien Barrat, Enrico Marchetto, Alessio Miscioscia, Elli Pomoni

Published May 30, 2025• 13 citations
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Abstract

We propose a numerical method to estimate one-point functions and the free-energy density of conformal field theories at finite temperature by solving the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger condition for the two-point functions of identical scalars. We apply the method for the critical O(N) model for N=1, 2, 3 in 3≤d≤4. We find agreement with known results from Monte Carlo simulations and previous results for the 3D Ising model, and we provide new predictions for N=2, 3.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.134.211604

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We propose a numerical method to estimate one-point functions and the free-energy density of conformal field theories at finite temperature by solving the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger condition for the two-point functions of identical scalars. We apply the method for the critical O(N) model for N=1, 2, 3 in 3≤d≤4. We find agreement with known results from Monte Carlo simulations and previous results for the 3D Ising model, and we provide new predictions for N=2, 3.
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Thanks to the impressive progress of conformal bootstrap methods we have now very precise estimates of both scaling dimensions and operator product expansion coefficients for several 3D universality classes. We show how to use this information to obtain similarly precise estimates for off-critical correlators using conformal perturbation. We discuss in particular the $⟨\ensuremath{\sigma}(r)\ensuremath{\sigma}(0)⟩$, $⟨\ensuremath{\epsilon}(r)\ensuremath{\epsilon}(0)⟩$ and $⟨\ensuremath{\sigma}(r)\ensuremath{\epsilon}(0)⟩$ two-point functions in the high and low temperature regimes of the 3D Ising model and evaluate the leading and next to leading terms in the $s={\mathrm{tr}}^{{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{t}}$ expansion, where ttt is the reduced temperature. Our results for $⟨\ensuremath{\sigma}(r)\ensuremath{\sigma}(0)⟩$ agree both with Monte Carlo simulations and with a set of experimental estimates of the critical scattering function.
We derive thermal Polyakov bootstrap equations for CFT two-point functions on Sβ1×Rd−1S^1_β\times\mathbb R^{d-1}Sβ1​×Rd−1. Combining the thermal OPE with a dispersion relation and the method of images gives a representation in blocks that satisfy Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) covariance. Their local expansions contain additional thermal blocks at classical double-twist dimensions. Matching the prescribed physical OPE requires cancellation of these generated contributions, yielding explicit linear equations for thermal OPE coefficients, including any compensating terms required by the reconstruction. We formulate the equations for bosonic scalar correlators and antiperiodic scalar structures extracted from fermion correlators, and find consistent solutions in analytically tractable thermal CFTs. The coefficient matrix, which we call the Polyakov matrix, connects the large-spin expansion to KMS consistency and reduces to minus the identity on the classical double-twist spectrum. This structure suggests a numerical approach to the three-dimensional Ising CFT that combines known low-lying vacuum data with a self-consistent large-spin tail.
We present a simple method to estimate the central charge of the conformal field theory corresponding to a critical point of a two-dimensional lattice model from Monte Carlo simulations. The main idea is to use the Wang-Landau flat-histogram algorithm, which allows us to obtain the free energy of a lattice model on a torus as a function of torus radii. The central charge is calculated with good precision from a free-energy scaling at the critical point. We apply the method to the Ising, tricritical Ising (Blume-Capel), Potts, and site-diluted Ising models, and we also discuss an estimation of the conformal weights.
We compute two- and three-point functions at criticality for the three-dimensional Ising universality class. To this end, we simulate the improved Blume-Capel model at the critical temperature on lattices of a linear size up to L=1600L=1600L=1600. As a check, also simulations of the spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ Ising model are performed. We find ${f}_{\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\epsilon}}=1.051(1)$ and ${f}_{\ensuremath{\epsilon}\ensuremath{\epsilon}\ensuremath{\epsilon}}=1.533(5)$ for operator product expansion coefficients. These results are consistent with but less precise than those recently obtained by using the bootstrap method. An important ingredient in our simulations is a variance reduced estimator of NNN-point functions. Finite size corrections vanish with ${L}^{\ensuremath{-}{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}}$, where LLL is the linear size of the lattice and ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}$ is the scaling dimension of the leading Z2{Z}_{2}Z2​-even scalar $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$.
We explain how the axioms of Conformal Field Theory are used to make predictions about critical exponents of continuous phase transitions in three dimensions, via a procedure called the conformal bootstrap. The method assumes conformal invariance of correlation functions, and imposes some relations between correlation functions of different orders. Numerical analysis shows that these conditions are incompatible unless the critical exponents take particular values, or more precisely that they must belong to a small island in the parameter space.