Line Operators in Chern-Simons-Matter Theories and Bosonization in Three Dimensions

Abstract

We study Chern-Simons theories at large $N$ with either bosonic or fermionic matter in the fundamental representation. The most fundamental operators in these theories are mesonic line operators, the simplest example being Wilson lines ending on fundamentals. We classify the conformal line operators along an arbitrary smooth path as well as the spectrum of conformal dimensions and transverse spins of their boundary operators at finite 't Hooft coupling. These line operators are shown to satisfy first-order chiral evolution equations, in which a smooth variation of the path is given by a factorized product of two line operators. We argue that this equation together with the spectrum of boundary operators are sufficient to uniquely determine the expectation values of these operators. We demonstrate this by bootstrapping the two-point function of the displacement operator on a straight line. We show that the line operators in the theory of bosons and the theory of fermions satisfy the same evolution equation and have the same spectrum of boundary operators.

12 pages, 3 figures. v2: typos corrected. v3: perturbative checks added; minor improvements. v4: minor improvements

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• A Duality Web in 2+1 Dimensions and Condensed Matter Physics
• Level/rank Duality and Chern-Simons-Matter Theories
• Seiberg Duality in Chern-Simons Theory
• Chern-Simons-matter dualities with $SO$ and $USp$ gauge groups
• 1/2-BPS Wilson Loops and Vortices in ABJM Model
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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Phases of Wilson Lines in Conformal Field Theories
• Integrated correlators from integrability: Maldacena-Wilson line in $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM
• Line operators in Chern-Simons-Matter theories and Bosonization in Three Dimensions II -Perturbative Analysis and All-loop Resummation
• Crossing Symmetry in Matter Chern-Simons Theories at finite $N$ and $k$
• Wilson loops and defect RG flows in ABJM
• Constant primary operators and where to find them: The strange case of BPS defects in ABJ(M) theory
• Bootstrapping Smooth Conformal Defects in Chern-Simons-Matter Theories
• Four-point functions and contact terms from higher-spin Ward identities of Chern-Simons-matter theory
• Framing fermionic Wilson loops in ABJ(M)