English

Solving Heun's equation using conformal blocks

High Energy Physics - Theory 2018-05-08 v3

Abstract

It is known that the classical limit of the second order BPZ null vector decoupling equation for the simplest two 5-point degenerate spherical conformal blocks yields: (i) the normal form of the Heun equation with the complex accessory parameter determined by the 4-point classical block on the sphere, and (ii) a pair of the Floquet type linearly independent solutions. A key point in a derivation of the above result is the classical asymptotic of the 5-point degenerate blocks in which the so-called heavy and light contributions decouple. In the present work the semi-classical heavy-light factorization of the 5-point degenerate conformal blocks is studied. In particular, a mechanism responsible for the decoupling of the heavy and light contributions is identified. Moreover, it is shown that the factorization property yields a practical method of computation of the Floquet type Heun's solutions. Finally, it should be stressed that tools analyzed in this work have a broad spectrum of applications, in particular, in the studies of spectral problems with the Heun class of potentials, sphere-torus correspondence in 2d CFT, the KdV theory, the connection problem for the Heun equation and black hole physics. These applications are main motivations for the present work.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.06135,
  title  = {Solving Heun's equation using conformal blocks},
  author = {Marcin Piatek and Artur R. Pietrykowski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.06135},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

28 pages, revised and extended version

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:19:19.553Z