Large N analytical functional bootstrap. Part I. 1D CFTs and total positivity

Abstract

Abstract We initiate the analytical functional bootstrap study of conformal field theories with large N limits. In this first paper we particularly focus on the 1D O(N) vector bootstrap. We obtain a remarkably simple bootstrap equation from the O(N) vector crossing equations in the large N limit. The numerical conformal bootstrap bound is saturated by the generalized free field theories, while its extremal functional actions do not converge to any non-vanishing limit. We study the analytical extremal functionals of this crossing equation, for which the total positivity of the SL(2, ℝ) conformal block plays a critical role. We prove the SL(2, ℝ) conformal block is totally positive in the limits with large ∆ or small 1 − z and show that the total positivity is violated below a critical value $$ {\Delta }_{\textrm{TP}}^{\ast } $$ ∆ TP ∗ ≈ 0.32315626. The SL(2, ℝ) conformal block forms a surprisingly sophisticated mathematical structure, which for instance can violate total positivity at the order 10−5654 for a normal value ∆ = 0.1627! We construct a series of analytical functionals {αM} which satisfy the bootstrap positive conditions up to a range ∆ ⩽ ΛM. The functionals {αM} have a trivial large M limit. However, due to total positivity, they can approach the large M limit in a way consistent with the bootstrap positive conditions for arbitrarily high ΛM. Moreover, in the region ∆ ⩽ ΛM, the analytical functional actions are consistent with the numerical bootstrap results, therefore it clarifies the positive structure in the crossing equation analytically. Our result provides a concrete example to illustrate how the analytical properties of the conformal block lead to nontrivial bootstrap bounds. We expect this work paves the way for large N analytical functional bootstrap in higher dimensions.