Universality in asymptotic bounds and its saturation in 2D CFT

Abstract

Abstract We study asymptotics of three point coefficients (light-light-heavy) and two point correlators in heavy states in unitary, compact 2D CFTs. We prove an upper and lower bound on such quantities using numerically assisted Tauberian techniques. We obtain an optimal upper bound on the spectrum of operators appearing with fixed spin from the OPE of two identical scalars. While all the CFTs obey this bound, rational CFTs come close to saturating it. This mimics the scenario of bounds on asymptotic density of states and thereby pronounces an universal feature in asymptotics of 2D CFTs. Next, we clarify the role of smearing in interpreting the asymptotic results pertaining to considerations of eigenstate thermalization in 2D CFTs. In the context of light-light-heavy three point coefficients, we find that the order one number in the bound is sensitive to how close the light operators are from the $$ \frac{c}{32} $$ c 32 threshold. In context of two point correlator in heavy state, we find the presence of an enigmatic regime which separates the AdS3 thermal physics and the BTZ black hole physics. Furthermore, we present some new numerical results on the behaviour of spherical conformal block.