Light-ray operators in conformal field theory

Understand

We argue that every CFT contains light-ray operators labeled by a continuous spin J.

• When J is a positive integer, light-ray operators become integrals of local operators over a null line.
• However for non-integer J, light-ray operators are genuinely nonlocal and give the analytic continuation of CFT data in spin described by Caron-Huot.
• A key role in our construction is played by a novel set of intrinsically Lorentzian integral transforms that generalize the shadow transform.