Casimir Effect, Weyl Anomaly and Displacement Operator in Boundary Conformal Field Theory

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate Casimir effect, Weyl anomaly and displacement operator for boundary conformal field theory in general dimensions. We find universal relations between them. In particular, they are all determined by the central charge of boundary conformal field theory. We verify these relations by studying free BCFTs and holographic BCFTs. As a byproduct, we obtain the holographic two point function of stress tensor when the bulk boundary is perpendicular to the AdS boundary.