E8 symmetry in the Quantum Ising model.

Jul-Sep 2012

Day 1: Jul 17
Notes taken by: Note: LaTeX template courtesy of UC Berkeley EECS dept. Disclaimer: These notes have not been subjected to the usual scrutiny reserved for formal publications.

1.1

Conformal Group

Conformal coordinate transformations are those which preserve angle. One can consider them as a generalization of scaling transformations. Rotations and translations are elementary examples. In minkowski space, lorentz transformations are length-preserving and hence angle-preserving. The conformal group is more general than these examples. Under a coordinate transformation, a metric g transforms according to: g (x ) =
dx dx dx dx g

By denition, conformal transformations leave the metric at a given point invariant upto a scale change. However, this scale can be a function of position. g (x ) = (x)g (x) (1.1)

We can show that a transformation that obeys (1.1) (local scale transformation) preserves angle. Given g v w two vectors v, w, the cosine of the angle between them, 1 . Clearly, under a conformal 1
(g v v ) 2 (g w w ) 2

transformation, the factor of (x) cancels in the numerator and denominator.

1.1.1

Innitesimal conformal transformations

Consider the innitesimal transformation x (x ) = x + are in minkowski space with metric ), ds 2 = dx dx

(x ). Under this transformation (assuming we

= (dx + dx )(dx + dx ) = ds2 + dx dx ( = ds + dx dx (

2

) (1.2)

+ )

Hence for the transformation to be conformal, we require ( (

+ ) to be proportional to . (1.3)

+ ) = C

We can arrive at a relation for the proportionality by multiplying both sides with and summing over and to get 2 (1.4) C = ( ) d where d is the dimension of the space. 1-1

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Day 1: Jul 17

References
[PG] [BLPL] P. Ginsparg, Applied Conformal Field Theory arXiv:hep-th/9108028v1 Ralph Blumenhagen and Eric Plauschinn Introduction to Conformal Field Theory with Applications to String Theory (Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer)