The extraordinary boundary transition in the 3d O(N) model via conformal bootstrap

Abstract

This paper studies the critical behavior of the 3d classical O(N)(N) model with a boundary. Recently, one of us established that upon treating NN as a continuous variable, there exists a critical value N_c > 2Nc>2 such that for 2 \leq N < N_c2≤N<Nc the model exhibits a new extraordinary-log boundary universality class, if the symmetry preserving interactions on the boundary are enhanced. N_cNc is determined by a ratio of universal amplitudes in the normal universality class, where instead a symmetry breaking field is applied on the boundary. We study the normal universality class using the numerical conformal bootstrap. We find truncated solutions to the crossing equation that indicate N_c \approx 5Nc≈5. Additionally, we use semi-definite programming to place rigorous bounds on the boundary CFT data of interest to conclude that N_c > 3Nc>3, under a certain positivity assumption which we check in various perturbative limits.