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Physical Review Letters

Domain boundary energies and interactions at 2D criticality via conformal field theory

Peter H. Kleban

Published Nov 1, 1991• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

By use of conformal field theory, we calculate the energies of one or more curved domain boundaries at two-dimensional critical points. We find the interaction of two separated boundaries of the same type to be weakly attractive, and proportional to the square of an operator-product expansion coefficient. In a strip of width L, the interaction vanishes exponentially with separation, over a distance set by L. It is also small for nearby domains when one of them is much smaller than L. Many-body interaction energies are weak as well.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.67.2799

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By use of conformal field theory, we calculate the energies of one or more curved domain boundaries at two-dimensional critical points. We find the interaction of two separated boundaries of the same type to be weakly attractive, and proportional to the square of an operator-product expansion coefficient. In a strip of width L, the interaction vanishes exponentially with separation, over a distance set by L. It is also small for nearby domains when one of them is much smaller than L. Many-body interaction energies are weak as well.
With conformal-invariance methods, Burkhardt, Guim, and Xue studied the critical Ising model, defined on the upper half plane y>0 with different boundary conditions a and b on the negative and positive x axes. For ab=-+ and f+, they determined the one- and two-point averages of the spin σ and energy ε. Here +,-, and f stand for spin-up, spin-down, and free-spin boundaries, respectively. The case +-+-+⋯, where the boundary condition switches between + and - at arbitrary points, ζ_{1},ζ_{2},⋯ on the x axis was also analyzed. In the first half of this paper a similar study is carried out for the alternating boundary condition +f+f+⋯ and the case -f+ of three different boundary conditions. Exact results for the one- and two-point averages of σ,ε, and the stress tensor T are derived with conformal-invariance methods. From the results for 〈T〉, the critical Casimir interaction with the boundary of a wedge-shaped inclusion is derived for mixed boundary conditions. In the second half of the paper, arbitrary two-dimensional critical systems with mixed boundary conditions are analyzed with boundary-operator expansions. Two distinct types of expansions-away from switching points of the boundary condition and at switching points-are considered. Using the expansions, we express the asymptotic behavior of two-point averages near boundaries in terms of one-point averages. We also consider the strip geometry with mixed boundary conditions and derive the distant-wall corrections to one-point averages near one edge due to the other edge. Finally we confirm the consistency of the predictions obtained with conformal-invariance methods and with boundary-operator expansions, in the the first and second halves of the paper.
We show that for conformally invariant two-dimensional systems, the amplitude of the finite-size corrections to the free energy of an infinitely long strip of width L at criticality is linearly related to the conformal anomaly number c, for various boundary conditions. The result is confirmed by renormalization-group arguments and numerical calculations. It is also related to the magnitude of the Casimir effect in an interacting one-dimensional field theory, and to the low-temperature specific heat in quantum chains.
Off-diagonal profiles of local densities (e.g. order parameter or energy density) are calculated at the bulk critical point, by conformal methods, on a strip with transverse coordinate v, for different types of boundary conditions (free, fixed and mixed). Such profiles, which are defined by the non-vanishing matrix element of the appropriate operator between the ground state and the corresponding lowest excited state of the strip Hamiltonian, enter into the expression of two-point correlation functions on a strip. They are of interest in the finite-size scaling study of bulk and surface critical behaviour since they allow the elimination of regular contributions. The conformal profiles, which are obtained through a conformal transformation of the correlation functions from the half-plane to the strip, are in agreement with the results of a direct calculation, for the energy density of the two-dimensional Ising model.
We consider the structure of current and stress tensor two-point functions in conformal field theory with a boundary. The main result of this paper is a relation between a boundary central charge and the coefficient of a displacement operator correlation function in the boundary limit. The boundary central charge under consideration is the coefficient of the product of the extrinsic curvature and the Weyl curvature in the conformal anomaly. Along the way, we describe several auxiliary results. Three of the more notable are as follows: (1) we give the bulk and boundary conformal blocks for the current two-point function; (2) we show that the structure of these current and stress tensor two-point functions is essentially universal for all free theories; (3) we introduce a class of interacting conformal field theories with boundary degrees of freedom, where the interactions are confined to the boundary. The most interesting example we consider can be thought of as the infrared fixed point of graphene. This particular interacting conformal model in four dimensions provides a counterexample of a previously conjectured relation between a boundary central charge and a bulk central charge. The model also demonstrates that the boundary central charge can change in response to marginal deformations.