Constructive Quantum Field Theory on Curved Surfaces and Related Topics

This is the Ph.D. thesis of the author. In this thesis, we construct the $P(\phi)_2$ Quantum Field Theory (QFT) model on curved surfaces and show that it satisfies Segal's axioms (arXiv:2403.12804). An important ingredient in this construction is the use of a local regularization procedure to define the interaction as a random variable with respect to the Gaussian Free Field (GFF). We provide a counterexample demonstrating that spectral truncation regularization violates locality (arXiv:2312.15511). We then explain how Segal's formalism can be extended to the gluing of surfaces with slits, which offers a geometric interpretation of the entanglement entropy. Using this interpretation, we exploit the Polyakov anomaly formula in Conformal Field Theory (CFT) and apply a simple renormalization procedure to define a quantity corresponding to entanglement entropy within this geometric interpretation. We then show that this quantity behaves like a CFT correlation function. This allows us to rigorously derive an entropy calculation of Cardy and Calabrese (arXiv:2501.19014). Finally, Segal's formalism is also related to the asymptotics of zeta determinants on surfaces of large genus where the genus tends to infinity (arXiv:2505.01586). We provide a geometric proof--independent of Segal's axioms--of the corresponding result using heat kernels, in addition to another proof based on Segal's axioms. Both proofs are presented in the thesis.