Thermal Polyakov bootstrap
Abstract
We derive thermal Polyakov bootstrap equations for CFT two-point functions on S1β×ℝd−1. Combining the thermal OPE with a dispersion relation and the method of images gives a representation in blocks that satisfy Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) covariance. Their local expansions contain additional thermal blocks at classical double-twist dimensions. Matching the prescribed physical OPE requires cancellation of these generated contributions, yielding explicit linear equations for thermal OPE coefficients, including any compensating terms required by the reconstruction. We formulate the equations for bosonic scalar correlators and antiperiodic scalar structures extracted from fermion correlators, and find consistent solutions in analytically tractable thermal CFTs. The coefficient matrix, which we call the Polyakov matrix, connects the large-spin expansion to KMS consistency and reduces to minus the identity on the classical double-twist spectrum. This structure suggests a numerical approach to the three-dimensional Ising CFT that combines known low-lying vacuum data with a self-consistent large-spin tail.
Related
BibTeX
@misc{guo2026thermal,
title = {{Thermal Polyakov bootstrap}},
author = {Yongwei Guo and Zhijin Li and Tinghong Shen},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.28627},
eprint = {2609.28627},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05781799v1},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Thermal Polyakov bootstrap
AU - Yongwei Guo
AU - Zhijin Li
AU - Tinghong Shen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
PB - HAL
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.28627
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05781799v1
AB - We derive thermal Polyakov bootstrap equations for CFT two-point functions on S^1_β×ℝ^d−1. Combining the thermal OPE with a dispersion relation and the method of images gives a representation in blocks that satisfy Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) covariance. Their local expansions contain additional thermal blocks at classical double-twist dimensions. Matching the prescribed physical OPE requires cancellation of these generated contributions, yielding explicit linear equations for thermal OPE coefficients, including any compensating terms required by the reconstruction. We formulate the equations for bosonic scalar correlators and antiperiodic scalar structures extracted from fermion correlators, and find consistent solutions in analytically tractable thermal CFTs. The coefficient matrix, which we call the Polyakov matrix, connects the large-spin expansion to KMS consistency and reduces to minus the identity on the classical double-twist spectrum. This structure suggests a numerical approach to the three-dimensional Ising CFT that combines known low-lying vacuum data with a self-consistent large-spin tail.
ER -