English

Modular invariance groups and defect McKay-Thompson series

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-09-12 v2 Representation Theory

Abstract

It has been known since 1992 that the McKay-Thompson series Tg(q)T_g(q) of the Moonshine module form Hauptmoduln for genus zero subgroups of SL(2,R)SL(2, \mathbb{R}). In 2021, Lin and Shao constructed a series analogous to the McKay-Thompson series (a twined partition function of the Monster CFT), but using a non-invertible topological defect rather than an element of the Monster group M\mathcal{M}. This "defect McKay-Thompson series" was found to be invariant under a genus zero subgroup of SL(2,R)SL(2, \mathbb{R}), but was shown not to be the Hauptmodul of the subgroup. Nevertheless, one might wonder if a weaker version of Borcherds' theorem holds for non-invertible defects: perhaps defect McKay-Thompson series enjoy genus zero invariance groups in SL(2,R)SL(2, \mathbb{R}), whether or not they are Hauptmoduln for those groups. Using the decompositions of the monster stress tensor found in Bae et al. (2021), we construct several new defect McKay-Thompson series, study their modular properties, and determine their invariance groups in SL(2,R)SL(2, \mathbb{R}). We discover that many of the invariance groups are not genus zero.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2408.16263,
  title  = {Modular invariance groups and defect McKay-Thompson series},
  author = {Harry Fosbinder-Elkins and Jeffrey A. Harvey},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.16263},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

18 pages, 1 figure, 5 tables

R2 v1 2026-06-28T18:27:16.801Z