English

Vertex Operator Algebras with central charge 8 and 16

Quantum Algebra 2018-12-18 v1

Abstract

We will partially classify spaces of characters of vertex operator algebras VV with central charges 8 and 16, such that the spaces of characters is 3-dimensional and the characters forms a basis of the solution space of a third order monic modular linear differential equation with rational indicial roots. Assuming a mild arithmetic condition, we show that the space of characters of VV coincides with the space of characters of lattice vertex operators associated with integral lattices 2E8\sqrt{2}E_8 or the affine vertex operator algebra of type D20(1)D_{20}^{(1)} for c=8c=8, and the Barnes--Wall lattice Λ16\Lambda_{16}, the affine vertex operator algebras of type D16(1)D_{16}^{(1)} with level 1 and type D28(1)D_{28}^{(1)} with level 1 for c=16c=16. (The central charge of the affine vertex operator algebra of type D28(1)D_{28}^{(1)} with level 1 is 28, but the space of characters satisfies the differential equations for c=16c=16.) Supposing a mild condition on characters of VV, then it uniquely determines (up to isomorphism) the spaces of characters of the lattice 2E8\sqrt{2}E_8 and the Barnes--Wall lattice Λ16\Lambda_{16}, respectively. The reason why vertex operator algebras with central charges 8 and 16 are intensively studied is that there are solutions which do not depend on extra parameters (which represent conformal weights). This fact is well understood using the hypergeometric function 3F23F2. Hence we cannot apply our standard method to classify vertex operator algebras in which we are interested. In appendix we classify c=4c=4 vertex operator algebras with the same conditions mentioned above.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.06357,
  title  = {Vertex Operator Algebras with central charge 8 and 16},
  author = {Geoffrey Mason and Kiyokazu Nagatomo and Yuichi Sakai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.06357},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

To appear in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Vertex Operator Algebras and Number Theory (Sac. State Ca.), Contemp.Math. AMS

R2 v1 2026-06-23T06:43:36.044Z