Saturday, 23 December 2017

quantum field theory - Conformal symmetry, Weyl symmetry, and a traceless energy-momentum tensor


I'm trying to drill down the exact relation between conformal symmetry, Weyl symmetry, and tracelessness of the energy-momentum tensor. However, I'm getting quite confused because every book I can find seems to be treating this subject extremely sloppily.


First, following the exposition here, a conformal transformation is defined to be a diffeomorphism which satisfies gμν(x)=Ω2gμν(x)

followed by a Weyl transformation (i.e. a local rescaling of the metric and fields), so that the composite of the two maps transforms the metric as gμν(x)gμν(x)=gμν(x).
In fact, this is already a big source of confusion, because many sources call these diffeomorphisms conformal transformations in themselves, while other sources call Weyl transformations conformal transformations. But as far as I can tell, the "true" conformal transformations people actually use require both of these transformations. In other words, using the common nomenclature, a conformal transformation is a conformal transformation plus a conformal transformation. As far as I can tell, no source defines a conformal transformation explicitly, and most describe it as "a diffeormorphism that preserves angles", which is a completely vacuous statement.


In any case, both steps also affect the matter fields Φ, so the variation of the action under a conformal transformation should have four terms, δS=Md4x(δSδΦ(δdΦ+δwΦ)+δSδgab(δdgab+δwgab))

where δd is the variation due to the diffeomorphism and δw is the variation due to the Weyl transformation. Let us number these contributions δS1 through δS4.



Polchinski performs the derivation in one line, blithely ignoring all terms except for δS4. Meanwhile, di Francesco ignores all terms except for δS1 (e.g. see Eq. 4.34). This is supposed to be analogous to an argument in chapter 2, which their own errata indicate are completely wrong, because they forgot to include δS3. Unfortunately, they didn't correct chapter 4.


In any case, di Francesco claims that tracelessness of the energy-momentum tensor implies conformal invariance, which is the statement δS=0. I've been unable to prove this. We know that δS1+δS3=0 by diffeomorphism invariance, and δS4=0 by tracelessness. But that doesn't take care of δS2, which is the subject of this question. We cannot say it vanishes on-shell, because symmetries must hold off-shell.


I run into a similar problem trying to prove a converse. Suppose we have conformal invariance. Then δS=0, and we know δS1+δS3=0. At this point I can't make any further progress without assuming the matter is on-shell, δS2=0. Then we know δS4=0, but this does not prove the tracelessness of the energy-momentum tensor, because the Weyl transformation in a conformal transformation is not a general Weyl transformation, but rather is quite restricted.


In other words, I can't prove either direction, and I think all the proofs I've seen in books are faulty, forgetting about the majority of the terms in the variation. What is going on here?




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