Bootstrapping monodromy defects in the Wess-Zumino model

Abstract

Abstract We use analytical bootstrap techniques to study supersymmetric monodromy defects in the critical Wess-Zumino model. In preparation for this result we first study two related systems which are interesting on their own: general monodromy defects (no susy), and the ε-expansion bootstrap for the Wess-Zumino model (no defects). For general monodromy defects, we extend previous work on codimension-two conformal blocks and the Lorentzian inversion formula in order to accommodate parity-odd structures. In the Wess-Zumino model, we bootstrap four-point functions of chiral operators in the ε-expansion, with the goal of obtaining spectral information about the bulk theory. We then proceed to bootstrap two-point functions of chiral operators in the presence of a monodromy defect, and obtain explicit expressions in terms of novel special functions which we analyze in detail. Several of the results presented in this paper are quite general and should be applicable to other setups.