Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/iii/paper-354/1/a/solution

Let be the state associated with a scalar conformal primary operator of scaling dimension . In radial quantization,
and . The norm of a level-one conformal descendant is
Unitarity first gives . If , every is null, so the local operator is translation invariant and belongs to the identity conformal family. Excluding the identity therefore gives .
Now consider the scalar level-two descendant . The conformal algebra and the scalar-primary conditions give
Applying the second and summing over yields
Positivity of this norm, together with , proves the scalar conformal unitarity bound
At equality the level-two descendant is null; in position space this is the free scalar equation of motion.

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