This thesis is concerned with perturbed conformal field theory, the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz technique and applications to statistical mechanics. In particular, the phase space of two dimensional Z(_N)-symmetric statistical models is examined using these techniques. The aim of the first two chapters is to review some general material concerning statistical mechanics, perturbed conformal field theory, integrable two-dimensional quantum field theory and the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) technique. In the third chapter Z(_N)-symmetric statistical theories are discussed and the known features of the phase space of such models are surveyed. The field content of the conformal models in this space (called parafermionic models) is investigated in order to determine which perturbations can be used to investigate the phase space. In the fourth and fifth chapters TBA equations are proposed to describe massless and massive renormalisation flows from the Z(_N)-symmetric conformal theories under self-dual Z(_N)-symmetric perturbations. According to the sign of the perturbation parameter the infrared limits are shown to be either conformal c = 1 or massive theories. The ground state energies of these models can be discovered in all perturbative regimes via the TBA method and the results agree with perturbation theory in ultraviolet and infrared limits. Results from detailed studies of the N = 5, 6..10 models are presented throughout. It is also deduced that the parafermionic models lie exactly at the bifurcation point of the first-order transition region into the Kosterlitz-Thouless region of the Z(_N)-symmetric phase space. The sixth and seventh chapters deal solely with massive perturbations. In chapter six, results from the TBA equations are used to deduce the mass spectrum and the vacuum structure of the underlying scattering theory. In chapter seven, proposals for the massive S-matrices are made. For N odd the mass spectra proposed by the TBA method and that predicted by the S-matrix approach (using the minimality principle) differ. It is suggested therefore, that the N odd S-matrices contain zeroes in the physical strip, violating the minimality principle.
This thesis is concerned with perturbed conformal field theory, the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz technique and applications to statistical mechanics. In particular, the phase space of two dimensional Z(_N)-symmetric statistical models is examined using these techniques. The aim of the first two chapters is to review some general material concerning statistical mechanics, perturbed conformal field theory, integrable two-dimensional quantum field theory and the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) technique. In the third chapter Z(_N)-symmetric statistical theories are discussed and the known features of the phase space of such models are surveyed. The field content of the conformal models in this space (called parafermionic models) is investigated in order to determine which perturbations can be used to investigate the phase space. In the fourth and fifth chapters TBA equations are proposed to describe massless and massive renormalisation flows from the Z(_N)-symmetric conformal theories under self-dual Z(_N)-symmetric perturbations. According to the sign of the perturbation parameter the infrared limits are shown to be either conformal c = 1 or massive theories. The ground state energies of these models can be discovered in all perturbative regimes via the TBA method and the results agree with perturbation theory in ultraviolet and infrared limits. Results from detailed studies of the N = 5, 6..10 models are presented throughout. It is also deduced that the parafermionic models lie exactly at the bifurcation point of the first-order transition region into the Kosterlitz-Thouless region of the Z(_N)-symmetric phase space. The sixth and seventh chapters deal solely with massive perturbations. In chapter six, results from the TBA equations are used to deduce the mass spectrum and the vacuum structure of the underlying scattering theory. In chapter seven, proposals for the massive S-matrices are made. For N odd the mass spectra proposed by the TBA method and that predicted by the S-matrix approach (using the minimality principle) differ. It is suggested therefore, that the N odd S-matrices contain zeroes in the physical strip, violating the minimality principle.
RSOS models and their associated RZMS scattering QFT models, this is certainly not the case, and here the corresponding TBA equations have been derived only in a few special cases.This shortcoming provides the primary motivation for the work contained in this thesis.After presenting a brief review of the various techniques for deriving the TBA equations associated with the ground state energy for the 0 lj3 perturbations of the minimal CFT models, attempts are made at extending these techniques to the derivation of the TBA equations associated with the ground state energy of the 0 i;2 and perturbations of the minimal CFT models.More recently, the functional relation approach for constructing the ground state TBA equations was extended to the derivation of TBA-like integral equations which correspond to excited state energy levels.In principle, this approach can be used to determine the complete energy spectrum of the perturbed CFT, but in practice this is a very difficult undertaking and only the lowest few excited states are rela tively easily to obtain.In the final chapter of this thesis, this approach is used to determine the TBA-like equations corresponding to the lowest three energy levels of a particular simple perturbed CFT, notably the non-unitary minimal CFT perturbed by its operator <^2,i-L ist o f P u b lic a tio n sThe bulk of the original research content of this thesis is contained in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, with some numerical results tabulated in Appendices B and C. Various parts of this research are, or are soon to be, published as follows.The ground state TBA results of Chapter 5, appear in the paper:• R. M. Ellem, and V. V. Bazhanov: Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz for the subleading magnetic perturbation of the tricritical Ising Model, Nucl.Phys.B512 (1998), 563-580.The ground state and excited state TBA results of Sections 4.1, 5.1, 5.4 and Chapter 6, and the transfer matrix fusion relations in Section 4.2 and Chapter 6, appear in the paper:• R. M. Ellem, and V. V. Bazhanov: Excited State TBA for the < /> 2,i Perturbed A43;5 Model.To be submitted.The general 5-matrix amplitudes and bootstrap properties of Section 4.3, will ap pear in the paper:• R. M. Ellem: Scattering Structure of the (f)\i2 and (f)2,i Perturbed Minimal Conformal Field Theory Models. Currently in preparation.An extension of the integral equation techniques introduced in Chapter 6, to the fusion equation for the regime 1+ dilute A 2 model described in Section 4.2.1, will appear in the paper:• R. M. Ellem: Excited State TBA for the 02jl Perturbed M .%,4Model.Currently in preparation.
This thesis is concerned with various aspects of perturbed conformal field theory and the methods used to calculate finite-size effects of integrable quantum field theories. Nonlinear integral equations are the main tools to find the exact ground-state energy of a quantum field theory. The thermodyamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) equations are a set of examples and are known for a large number of models. However, it is also an interesting question to find exact equations describing the excited states of integrable models. The first part of this thesis uses analytical continuation in a continuous parameter to find TBA like equations describing the spin-zero excited states of the sine-Gordon model at coupling β(^2) = 16π/3. Comparisons are then made with a further type of nonlinear integral equation which also predicts the excited state energies. Relations between the two types of equation are studied using a set of functional relations recently introduced in integrable quantum field theory. A relevant perturbation of a conformal field theory results in either a massive quantum field theory such as the sine-Gordon model, or a different massless conformal field theory. The second part of this thesis investigates flows between conformal field theories using a nonlinear integral equation. New families of flows are found which exhibit a rather unexpected behaviour. The final part of this thesis begins with a review of a connection between integrable quantum field theory and properties of certain ordinary differential equations of second- and third-order. The connection is based on functional relations which appear on both sides of the correspondence; for the second-order case these are exactly the functional relations mentioned above. The results are extended to include a correspondence between n(^th) order differential equations and Bethe ansatz system of SU(n) type. A set of nonlinear integral equations are derived to check the results.
A relevant perturbation of a conformal field theory (CFT) on the half-plane, by both a bulk and boundary operator, often leads to a massive theory with a particle description in terms of the bulk S-matrix and boundary reflection factor R. The link between the particle basis and the CFT in the bulk is usually made with the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz effective central charge C(_eff). This allows a conjectured S-matrix to be identified with a specific perturbed CFT. Less is known about the links between the reflection factors and conformal boundary conditions, but it has been proposed that an exact, off-critical version of Affleck and Ludwig's g-function could be used, analogously to C(_eff), to identify the physically realised reflection factors and to match them with the corresponding boundary conditions. In the first part of this thesis, this exact g-function is tested for the purely elastic scattering theories related to the ADET Lie algebras. Minimal reflection factors are given, and a method to incorporate a boundary parameter is proposed. This enables the prediction of several new flows between conformal boundary conditions to be made. The second part of this thesis concerns the three-parameter family of PT-symmetric Hamiltonians H(M,o,1) = p(^2) – (ix) (^2M) – α(ix) The positions where the eigenvalues merge and become complex correspond to quadratic and cubic exceptional points. The quasi-exact solvability of the models for M = 3 is exploited to exploreaway from M = 3 is investigated using both numerical and perturbative approaches.
This thesis is devoted to the study of ghost theories out of the critical point, in two dimensions. The first chapter offers a bird's eye view of the most important applications of ghosts to condensed matter physics. After a brief exposition of the basic (and less basic) facts concerning ghosts at the critical point, an outline of the non-perturbative methods, used in Part I and Part II, is furnished. Essentially, they rely on the so-called integrable approach, which is based on the possibility of describing all the states of an integrable quantum field theory in terms of pseudo-particles in a Hilbert space. The scattering properties of such excitations are encoded into a matrix (the S-matrix), which can be exactly determined by imposing a set of stringent constraints, and which allows to specify completely the particle content of the theory (masses, multiplicities, bound states) [38, 39]. The knowledge of the scattering amplitude, then, permits to extract all the thermodynamic quantities of the system (free energy) by means of the Thermodynamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) technique [40] and, at least in principle, to determine the off-critical correlation functions of the local operators of the theory, thanks to the so-called Form Factor bootstrap approach [41-43]. Part I contains the simplest examples of off-critical ghost theories, namely the massive versions of the conformal free bosonic and fermionic ones [44]. Despite their non-interacting nature, still there are non-local sectors of the models, which exhibit a highly interacting behavior. Correlation functions of operators belonging to these sectors are computed exactly and a comparison with the massive ordinary counterparts is performed. Afterwards, the effects;produced by the introduction of impurities are considered [45]. At the moment, such models lack a physical realization, but they are important as 'prototype' systems, shedding light on some crucial basic aspects (e.g. the choice of the most convenient basis for the space of states). Part II deals with a deceptively simple representative of the aforementioned nonlinear sigma models defined on supersymmetric manifolds, where the vector field, with one commuting component and two anticommuting ones, transforms under the global symmetry OSP(ll2). This system has a simple physical realization in terms of a dense loop model, where crossings of loops are allowed [28, 46]. At long wavelength, the theory is gapless and the Goldstone excitations are nothing but free fermionic ghosts [25, 28]. We propose the exact S-matrix for this system and present TBA calculations, supporting such conjecture. The bootstrap form factor approach is outlined, including a detailed discussion about the symmetry properties of the model and the explicit derivation of some basic objects, such as the minimal form factors. Moreover, we compute explicitly the two-point correlation function of a suitably chosen operator of the theory, comparing its large distance limit with the result expected on the basis of conformal field theory considerations. Since the work is still in progress [47], we conclude sketching the main goals and the route we intend to take, in order to pursue them.
Abstract The thermodynamics of a quantum field theory in an infinite volume can be determined by its S-matrix. This idea, originally proposed by R. Dashen, S.K. Ma, and H.J. Berstein, has been widely used to study the thermal properties of the integrable field theories in (1 + 1) dimensions. The reason consists of the particularly simple properties of these scattering matrices, as discussed in the previous two chapters, and the possibility to generalize to the relativistic case the thermodynamics Bethe ansatz (TBA) techniques successfully applied to non-relativistic problems by C.N. Yang and C.P. Yang. In the TBA approach, the derivation of the thermodynamics of a purely elastic scattering theory reduces to finding the solution of a set of nonlinear integral equations that rule the energies of the particle excitations and their statistical distribution.
Abstract This book provides a thorough introduction to the fascinating world of phase transitions as well as many related topics, including random walks, combinatorial problems, quantum field theory and S-matrix. Fundamental concepts of phase transitions, such as order parameters, spontaneous symmetry breaking, scaling transformations, conformal symmetry, and anomalous dimensions, have deeply changed the modern vision of many areas of physics, leading to remarkable developments in statistical mechanics, elementary particle theory, condensed matter physics and string theory. This self-contained book provides an excellent introduction to frontier topics of exactly solved models in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory, renormalization group, conformal models, quantum integrable systems, duality, elastic S-matrix, thermodynamics Bethe ansatz and form factor theory. The clear discussion of physical principles is accompanied by a detailed analysis of several branches of mathematics, distinguished for their elegance and beauty, such as infinite dimensional algebras, conformal mappings, integral equations or modular functions. Besides advanced research themes, the book also covers many basic topics in statistical mechanics, quantum field theory and theoretical physics. Each argument is discussed in great detail, paying attention to an overall coherent understanding of physical phenomena. Mathematical background is provided in supplements at the end of each chapter, when appropriate. The chapters are also followed by problems of different levels of difficulty. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students will find a rich and challenging source for improving their skills and for accomplishing a comprehensive learning of the many facets of the subject.