Conformal invariance and vector operators in the $O(N)$ model

Abstract

It is widely expected that, for a large class of models, scale invariance implies conformal invariance. A sufficient condition for this to happen is that there exists no integrated vector operator, invariant under all internal symmetries of the model, with scaling dimension $-1$. In this article, we compute the scaling dimensions of vector operators with lowest dimensions in the $O(N)$ model. We use three different approximation schemes: $\epsilon$ expansion, large $N$ limit and third order of the Derivative Expansion of Non-Perturbative Renormalization Group equations. We find that the scaling dimensions of all considered integrated vector operators are always much larger than $-1$. This strongly supports the existence of conformal invariance in this model. For the Ising model, an argument based on correlation functions inequalities was derived, which yields a lower bound for the scaling dimension of the vector perturbations. We generalize this proof to the case of the $O(N)$ model with $N\in \left\lbrace 2,3,4 \right\rbrace$.