Infinite distances in multicritical CFTs and higher-spin holography

Abstract

We investigate the swampland distance conjecture in higher-spin gravity. To this end, we study multicritical generalizations of large-$N$ vector models, bosonic and fermionic, and we compute the quantum information distance along selected renormalization-group trajectories toward the higher-spin limit. In striking contrast to the expected exponential decay of higher-spin masses or anomalous dimensions, we find that infinite-distance limits in these models lead to a power-like decay. This suggests that stringy exponential decays are characteristic of matrix-like gauge theories, rather than vector models. We corroborate this notion studying the information distance along coupling variations in Chern-Simons-matter CFTs, where matrix-like degrees of freedom dominate over vector-like ones.

33+9 pages, 8 figures

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• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Swampland: The Cosmologist's Handbook to the string-theoretical Swampland Programme