PIRSA:19080065

3d Abelian Gauge theories at the Boundary

Lauria, E. (2019). 3d Abelian Gauge theories at the Boundary. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/19080065

Lauria, Edoardo. 3d Abelian Gauge theories at the Boundary. Perimeter Institute, Aug. 07, 2019, https://pirsa.org/19080065 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:19080065,
            doi = {10.48660/19080065},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/19080065},
            author = {Lauria, Edoardo},
            keywords = {Condensed Matter, Quantum Fields and Strings, Quantum Information},
            language = {en},
            title = {3d Abelian Gauge theories at the Boundary},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2019},
            month = {aug},
            note = {PIRSA:19080065 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Edoardo Lauria

Durham University

Talk number
PIRSA:19080065
Collection
Talk Type
Subject
Abstract
A four-dimensional abelian gauge theory can be coupled to a 3d CFT with a U(1) symmetry living on a boundary. This coupling gives rise to a continuous family of boundary conformal field theories (BCFTs) parametrized by the gauge coupling \tau and by the choice of the CFT in the decoupling limit. Upon performing an Electric-Magnetic duality in the bulk and going to the decoupling limit in the new frame, one finds a different 3d CFT on the boundary, related to the original one by Witten's SL(2, Z) action. In particular the cusps on the real \tau axis correspond to the 3d gauging of the original CFT. We study general properties of this family of BCFTs. We show how to express bulk one and two-point functions, and the hemisphere free-energy, in terms of the two-point functions of the boundary electric and magnetic currents. Finally, upon assuming particle-vortex duality (and its fermionic version), we show how to turn this machinery into a powerful computational tool to study 3d gauge theories.