Vacuum expectation value of twist fields

Twist fields emerge in a number of physical applications ranging from entanglement entropy to scattering amplitudes in four-dimensional gauge theories. In this work, their vacuum expectation values are studied in the path integral framework. By performing a gauge transformation, their correlation functions are reduced to field theory of matter fields in external Aharonov-Bohm vortices. The resulting functional determinants are then analyzed within the zeta-function regularization for the spectrum of Bessel zeros, and concise formulas are derived.

Figure 1

Integration contour (left panel) for resolvent representation of the zeta function and its deformation (right panel).