Monopole-Fermion Scattering from Twisted Conformal Boundary States

Abstract

We derive monopole-fermion scattering correlators from conformal boundary states in twisted sectors. The key ingredient is that symmetry-preserving boundary conditions contain sectors twisted by topological symmetry lines. Their overlaps determine correlators of operators attached to these lines, including the outgoing excitations required by charge conservation in the Callan-Rubakov effect. We construct the twisted boundary states of $N$ free Dirac fermions with $U(1)^N$-preserving boundary conditions, extending the familiar description in terms of charge lattices to shifted lattices describing twisted sectors. Using cluster decomposition and open-closed duality, we determine their coefficients and fix their normalization relative to the untwisted boundary state. We find that the Callan-Rubakov boundary condition yields a two-point function between an incoming fermion and an outgoing defect operator with a coefficient of unit modulus, even when the corresponding correlators of ordinary local fermions vanish. Finally, we relate these correlators to four-dimensional partial-wave scattering using gauge-covariant asymptotic states. We identify the missing $s$-wave contribution to the unitarity relation and argue that the twisted channel supplies it with precisely the required normalization.