On the Large $R$-charge Expansion in ${\mathcal N} = 2$ Superconformal Field Theories

Abstract

In this note we study two point functions of Coulomb branch chiral ring elements with large $R$-charge, in quantum field theories with ${\mathcal N} = 2$ superconformal symmetry in four spacetime dimensions. Focusing on the case of one-dimensional Coulomb branch, we use the effective-field-theoretic methods of arXiv:1706.05743, to estimate the two-point function $${\mathcal Y}_n \equiv |x-y|^{2n\Delta_{\mathcal O}}\left<({\mathcal O}(x))^n(\bar{\mathcal O}(y))^n\right>$$ in the limit where the operator insertion On has large total $R$-charge ${\mathcal J} = n\Delta_{\mathcal O}$. We show that ${\mathcal Y}_n$ has a nontrivial but universal asymptotic expansion at large ${\mathcal J}$, of the form $${\mathcal Y}_n = {\mathcal J}! \left(\frac{\left| {\mathbf N}_{\mathcal O}\right|}{2\pi}\right)^{2{\mathcal J}}{\mathcal J}^\alpha {\tilde{\mathcal Y}}_n$$ where ${\mathcal Y}_n$ approaches a constant as $n\to\infty$, and ${\mathbf N}_{\mathcal O}$ is an $n$-independent constant describing on the normalization of the operator relative to the effective Abelian gauge coupling. The exponent $\alpha$ is a positive number proportional to the difference between the $a$-anomaly coefficient of the underlying CFT and that of the effective theory of the Coulomb branch. For Lagrangian SCFT, we check our predictions against exact results from supersymmetric localization of Baggio et. al. and Gerchkovitz et. al., and find precise agreement for the logarithm ${\mathcal B}_n = \log{\mathcal Y}_n$, up to and including order $\log{\mathcal J}$. We also give predictions for the growth of two-point functions in all rank-one SCFT in the classification of Argyres et. al. In this way, we show the large-$R$-charge expansion serves as a bridge from the world of unbroken superconformal symmetry, OPE data, and bootstraps, to the world of the low-energy dynamics of the moduli space of vacua.