The free $\sigma$CFTs

Abstract

We introduce the conformal field theories that describe the shadows of the lowest dimension composites made out of massless free scalars and fermions in $d$ dimensions. We argue that these theories can be consistently defined as free CFTs for even $d\geq 4$. We use OPE techniques to study their spectrum and show that for $d\rightarrow\infty$ it matches that of free bosonic CFTs in $d=6$ and $d=4$ dimensions. For these $\sigma$CFTs we calculate $c_T$ in $d=6,8,10$ and $12$ dimensions using the OPE and also a direct construction of their higher-derivative energy momentum tensors. Our results agree with the general proposal of arXiv:1601.07198.