Description
The textbook approach to quantum field theory is to start from
the Lagrangian and then either do perturbation theory or, if the theory
is strongly coupled, resort to lattice Monte Carlo simulations. Recently
there has been renewed interest in developing and applying “bootstrap
methods”, which have different spirit. They use nonperturbatively valid
“axioms” to obtain concrete numerical results about experimentally
relevant strongly coupled QFTs. After a pedagogical background
introduction, I will describe these bootstrap methods and some of their
applications in the study of critical phenomena and scattering processes.
