High Energy Theory Seminar

IIn conformal field theory, four-point functions of scalar operators with large scaling dimension describe scattering of massive states in the ambient AdS spacetime. Understanding these scattering processes is vital for probing many-body physics with gravitational interactions and exploring the bulk dynamics of heavy objects, such as black holes.

In weakly coupled bulk theories, collinear particle jets scatter through distinct multi-particle exchanges, encoded by decomposing the correlation function into deformed higher-spin conformal blocks. At large external scaling dimension, these structures coalesce into Gaussian "saddles" in the OPE, and are governed by a small number of moment variables. Leveraging fractional calculus, we study the OPE as a Stieltjes moment problem and use analytic bootstrap techniques to establish bounds on moment sequences in the heavy limit. These results uncover novel constraints on the statistics of CFT data and suggest new frameworks for understanding heavy correlators in strongly interacting theories.

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

Contact theoryinfo@caltech.edu for Zoom information.