TY - JOUR
T1 - The a-theorem and conformal symmetry breaking in holographic RG flows
AU - Hoyos, Carlos
AU - Kol, Uri
AU - Sonnenschein, Jacob
AU - Yankielowicz, Shimon
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - We study holographic models describing an RG flow between two fixed points driven by a relevant scalar operator. We show how to introduce a spurion field to restore Weyl invariance and compute the anomalous contribution to the generating functional in even dimensional theories. We find that the coefficient of the anomalous term is proportional to the difference of the conformal anomalies of the UV and IR fixed points, as expected from anomaly matching arguments in field theory. For any even dimensions the coefficient is positive as implied by the holographic a-theorem. For flows corresponding to spontaneous breaking of conformal invariance, we also compute the two-point functions of the energy-momentum tensor and the scalar operator and identify the dilaton mode. Surprisingly we find that in the simplest models with just one scalar field there is no dilaton pole in the two-point function of the scalar operator but a stronger singularity. We discuss the possible implications.
AB - We study holographic models describing an RG flow between two fixed points driven by a relevant scalar operator. We show how to introduce a spurion field to restore Weyl invariance and compute the anomalous contribution to the generating functional in even dimensional theories. We find that the coefficient of the anomalous term is proportional to the difference of the conformal anomalies of the UV and IR fixed points, as expected from anomaly matching arguments in field theory. For any even dimensions the coefficient is positive as implied by the holographic a-theorem. For flows corresponding to spontaneous breaking of conformal invariance, we also compute the two-point functions of the energy-momentum tensor and the scalar operator and identify the dilaton mode. Surprisingly we find that in the simplest models with just one scalar field there is no dilaton pole in the two-point function of the scalar operator but a stronger singularity. We discuss the possible implications.
KW - AdS-CFT Correspondence
KW - Anomalies in Field and String Theories
KW - Renormalization Group
KW - Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876211026&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/JHEP03(2013)063
DO - 10.1007/JHEP03(2013)063
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AN - SCOPUS:84876211026
SN - 1126-6708
VL - 2013
JO - Journal of High Energy Physics
JF - Journal of High Energy Physics
IS - 3
M1 - 63
ER -