2023/10/23 by Thomas Hartman, Hartman, Thomas, Grégoire Mathys +1 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.15217
openalex publication_date 2023/10/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We study applications of spectral positivity and the averaged null energy condition (ANEC) to renormalization group (RG) flows in two-dimensional quantum field theory. We find a succinct new proof of the Zamolodchikov c-theorem, and derive further independent constraints along the flow. In particular, we identify a natural C-function that is a completely monotonic function of scale, meaning its derivatives satisfy the alternating inequalities (-1)nC(n)(μ2) ≥ 0. The completely monotonic C-function is identical to the Zamolodchikov C-function at the endpoints, but differs along the RG flow. In addition, we apply Lorentzian techniques that we developed recently to study anomalies and RG flows in four dimensions, and show that the Zamolodchikov c-theorem can be restated as a Lorentzian sum rule relating the change in the central charge to the average null energy. This establishes that the ANEC implies the c-theorem in two dimensions, and provides a second, simpler example of the Lorentzian sum rule.