Energy flux positivity and unitarity in conformal field theories

Open Access
Authors
  • M. Kulaxizi
  • A. Parnachev
Publication date 2011
Journal Physical Review Letters
Volume | Issue number 106 | 1
Pages (from-to) 011601
Number of pages 4
Organisations
  • Faculty of Science (FNWI) - Institute of Physics (IoP) - Institute for Theoretical Physics Amsterdam (ITFA)
Abstract
We show that in most conformal field theories the condition of the energy flux positivity, proposed by Hofman and Maldacena, is equivalent to the absence of ghosts. At finite temperature and large energy and momenta, the two-point functions of the stress energy tensor develop lightlike poles. The residues of the poles can be computed, as long as the only spin-two conserved current, which appears in the stress energy tensor operator-product expansion and acquires a nonvanishing expectation value at finite temperature, is the stress energy tensor. The condition for the residues to stay positive and the theory to remain ghost-free is equivalent to the condition of positivity of energy flux.
Document type Article
Language English
Published at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.011601
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