On the classification of UV completions of integrable TT¯ deformations of CFT

Abstract

It is well understood that 2d conformal field theory (CFT) deformed by an irrelevant TT¯ perturbation of dimension 4 has universal properties. In particular, for the most interesting cases, the theory develops a singularity in the ultra-violet (UV), signifying a shortest possible distance, with a Hagedorn transition in applications to string theory. We show that by adding an infinite number of higher [TT¯]s>1 irrelevant operators of positive integer scaling dimension 2(s+1) with tuned couplings, this singularity can be resolved and the theory becomes UV complete with a Virasoro central charge cUV> cIR consistent with the c-theorem. We propose an approach to classifying the possible UV completions of a given CFT perturbed by [TT¯]s that are integrable. The main tool utilized is the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz. We study this classification for theories with scalar (diagonal) factorizable S-matrices. For the Ising model with cIR = 12 we find 3 UV completions based on a single massless Majorana fermion description with cUV =710 and 32, which both have N = 1 SUSY and were previously known, and we argue that these are the only solutions to our classification problem based on this spectrum of particles. We find 3 additional ones with a spectrum of 8 massless particles related to the Lie group E8 appropriate to a magnetic perturbation with cUV = 2122,1512, and 312. We argue that it is likely there are more cases for this E8 spectrum. We also study simpler cases based on su(3) and su(4) where we can propose complete classifications. For su(3) the infrared (IR) theory is the 3-state Potts model with cIR = 45 and we find 3 completions with 45< cUV≤165. For the su(4) case, which has 3 particles and cIR = 1, and we find 11 UV completions with 1 < cUV ≤ 5, most of which were previously unknown.