The pinning-field line defect at finite temperature

Abstract

We study the pinning-field line defect in the critical $\mathrm{O}(N)$ model at finite temperature, describing a static symmetry-breaking impurity at a quantum critical point. Using the operator product expansion (OPE), analyticity, and thermal periodicity, we construct a manifestly periodic expansion relating heavy-operator asymptotics to low-lying thermal OPE data. We determine thermal correlators and one-point coefficients in the $\varepsilon$-expansion and, combining these results with the two-dimensional Ising endpoint, obtain the Padé estimate $\langle \hatϕ \rangle \sim 1.701/β^{\smash{\hatΔ_{\smash{\hatϕ}}}}$ for the lowest defect operator in the three-dimensional Ising model. We conjecture that truncating the periodic OPE to a few low-lying operators accurately approximates defect correlators. To test this, we numerically solve the large-$N$ thermal saddle and extract defect one-point coefficients across $2<d<4$. In three dimensions, we compute the tilt and longitudinal singlet two-point functions, finding very good agreement with the periodic OPE truncated to the identity and lowest singlet. Finally, we extend the analysis to finite spatial volume using antipodal defects on the sphere.