Light-cone modular bootstrap and pure gravity

Abstract

Using a special technique, modular bootstrap in the lightcone limit, the authors study the large spin spectrum in a certain class of two-dimensional conformal field theories. They identify the universal contribution to the density of large spin states from the vacuum, which they show becomes negative in a specific limit, which, as a consequence, would imply that pure $A\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}d\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}{S}_{3}$ gravity does not exist.