Double-Scaling Limit in Principal Chiral Model: a New Non-Critical String?

We study the $SU(2)$ Principal Chiral Model (PCM) in the presence of an integrable $\eta$-deformation. We put the theory on $\mathbb{R}\times S^1$ with twisted boundary conditions and then reduce the circle to obtain an effective quantum mechanics associated with the Whittaker-Hill equation. Using resurgent analysis we study the large order behaviour of perturbation theory and recover the fracton events responsible for IR renormalons. The fractons are modified from the standa...

We develop numerical tools for Diagrammatic Monte-Carlo simulations of non-Abelian lattice field theories in the t'Hooft large-N limit based on the weak-coupling expansion. First we note that the path integral measure of such theories contributes a bare mass term in the effective action which is proportional to the bare coupling constant. This mass term renders the perturbative expansion infrared-finite and allows to study it directly in the large-N and infinite-volume limits...

Analytical and numerical methods are applied to principal chiral models on a two-dimensional lattice and their predictions are tested and compared. New techniques for the strong coupling expansion of SU(N) models are developed and applied to the evaluation of the two-point correlation function. The momentum-space lattice propagator is constructed with precision O(\beta^{10}) and an evaluation of the correlation length is obtained for several different definitions. Three-loop ...

The SU($N$) principal chiral model is asymptotically free and integrable in $1+1$ dimensions. In the large-$N$ limit, there is no scattering, but correlation functions are {\em not} those of a free field theory. We briefly review the derivation of form factors for local operators. Two-point functions for such operators are known exactly. The two-point function of scaling-field operators has the short-distance behavior expected from the renormalization group. We briefly discus...

We present the exact and explicit solution of the principal chiral field in two dimensions for an infinitely large rank group manifold. The energy of the ground state is explicitly found for the external Noether's fields of an arbitrary magnitude. The exact Gell-Mann - Low function exhibits the asymptotic freedom behaviour at large value of the field in agreement with perturbative calculations. Coefficients of the perturbative expansion in the renormalized charge are calculat...

The general features of the 1/N expansion in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory are briefly reviewed both from the theoretical and from the phenomenological point of view as an introduction to a more detailed analysis of the large-N properties of spin and gauge models possessing the symmetry group $SU(N) \times SU(N)$. An extensive discussion of the known properties of the single-link integral (equivalent to YM_2 and one-dimensional chiral models) includes finit...

Conformal theories with a global symmetry may be studied in the double scaling regime where the interaction strength is reduced while the global charge increases. Here, we study generic 4d $\mathcal N=2$ $SU(N)$ gauge theories with conformal matter content at large R-charge $Q_{\rm R}\to \infty$ with fixed 't Hooft-like coupling $\kappa = Q_{\rm R}\,g_{\rm YM}^{2}$. Our analysis concerns two distinct classes of natural scaling functions. The first is built in terms of chiral/...

We explain the physical role of non-perturbative saddle points of path integrals in theories without instantons, using the example of the asymptotically free two-dimensional principal chiral model (PCM). Standard topological arguments based on homotopy considerations suggest no role for non-perturbative saddles in such theories. However, resurgence theory, which unifies perturbative and non-perturbative physics, predicts the existence of several types of non-perturbative sadd...

We present results for the large-$N$ limit of the (1+1)-dimensional principal chiral sigma model. This is an asymptotically-free $N\times N$ matrix-valued field with massive excitations. All the form factors and the exact correlation functions of the Noether-current operator and the energy-momentum tensor are found, from Smirnov's form-factor axioms. We consider (2+1)-dimensional $SU(\infty)$ Yang-Mills theory as an array of principal chiral models with a current-current inte...

We carry out a high-precision simulation of the two-dimensional $SU(3)$ principal chiral model at correlation lengths $\xi$ up to $\approx\! 4 \times 10^5$, using a multi-grid Monte Carlo (MGMC) algorithm. We extrapolate the finite-volume Monte Carlo data to infinite volume using finite-size-scaling theory, and we discuss carefully the systematic and statistical errors in this extrapolation. We then compare the extrapolated data to the renormalization-group predictions. For $...