I read it somewhere in physics SE that quantum field theory is today considered as deformation of conformal field theory. What does that mean?
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Without the context, this claim sounds absurd, sorry. – Prof. Legolasov Mar 11 '18 at 05:37
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The idea might be that by rescaling a QFT you reach a renormalization group fixed point; that fixed point is scale-invariant and therefore in many cases conformally invariant; then can we recover the original QFT by deforming that CFT? This is how I would understand the question, but I do not know the answer. Anyway it is no more absurd to consider QFT as a deformation of CFT, than to consider QFT as a deformation of free QFT. – Sylvain Ribault Mar 11 '18 at 19:50
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See also this question: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/339309/why-can-consistent-qfts-only-arise-from-cfts – Sylvain Ribault Mar 12 '18 at 08:33
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See, for example, the introduction to 1602.07982 or 1601.05000 – Elliot Schneider Mar 12 '18 at 15:21