Related papers: Surface Operators
As in two and four dimensions, supersymmetric conformal field theories in three dimensions can have exactly marginal operators. These are illustrated in a number of examples with N=4 and N=2 supersymmetry. The N=2 theory of three chiral…
We discuss an SL(2,R) family of deformed N=2 four-dimensional gauge theories which we derive from a flux background in M-theory. In addition to the Omega-deformation this family includes a new deformation, which we call the…
An overview of new 4d supersymmetric gauge theories with 2-form gauge potentials constructed by various authors during the past five years is given. The key role of three particular types of interaction vertices is emphasized. These…
In the framework of ordinary-derivative approach, conformal gravity in space-time of dimension six is studied. The field content, in addition to conformal graviton field, includes two auxiliary rank-2 symmetric tensor fields, two…
In the first part of this Chapter, we discuss the role of spectral observables, describing possible ways to build them from discretizations of the Laplace--Beltrami operator on triangulations, and how to extract useful geometric…
Gravitational theories with multiple scalar fields coupled to the metric and each other --- a natural extension of the well studied single-scalar-tensor theories --- are interesting phenomenological frameworks to describe deviations from…
In this thesis we study classical aspects of superconformal field theory via symmetry principles. Specifically, by employing the powerful setup of conformal superspace, we obtain a plethora of new results in the fields of geometric and…
We study conformal field theory on two-dimensional orbifolds and show this to be an effective way to analyze physical effects of geometric singularities with angular deficits. They are closely related to boundaries and cross caps.…
We study the problem of finding exactly marginal deformations of N=1 superconformal field theories in four dimensions. We find that the only way a marginal chiral operator can become not exactly marginal is for it to combine with a…
This survey discusses our results and conjectures concerning supersymmetric field theories and their relationship to cohomology theories. A careful definition of supersymmetric Euclidean field theories is given, refining Segal's axioms for…
We present a systematic derivation of the form of correlators of N operators in a Conformal Field Theory in d>2 dimensions and the exchange-symmetry constraints that the functions of the dimensionless cross-ratios obey for N>3.
In $D$ dimensional de Sitter space, a scalar field has an infinite tower of special tachyonic mass values at which enhanced shift symmetries appear. After modding out by these shift symmetries, these fields correspond to the unitary…
The paper puts together some loosely connected observations, old and new, on the concept of a quantum field and on the properties of Feynman amplitudes. We recall, in particular, the role of (exceptional) elementary induced representations…
I discuss gauge and global symmetries in particle physics, condensed matter physics, and quantum gravity. In a modern understanding, global symmetries are approximate and gauge symmetries may be emergent. (Based on a lecture at the April,…
Deviations from scale invariance resulting from small perturbations of a general two dimensional conformal field theory are studied. They are expressed in terms of beta functions for renormalization of general couplings under local change…
We consider the problem of computing N=2 superconformal block functions. We argue that the Kazama-Suzuki coset realization of N=2 superconformal algebra in terms of the affine sl(2) algebra provides relations between N=2 and affine sl(2)…
This article is expository in nature, outlining some of the many still incompletely understood features of higher spin field theory. We are mainly considering higher spin gauge fields in their own right as free-standing theoretical…
We study the superconformal index for the class of N=2 4d superconformal field theories recently introduced by Gaiotto. These theories are defined by compactifying the (2,0) 6d theory on a Riemann surface with punctures. We interpret the…
In this paper we continue our investigation of the global categorical symmetries that arise when gauging finite higher groups and their higher subgroups with discrete torsion. The motivation is to provide a common perspective on the…
First steps are taken in a project to construct a general class of conformal and perhaps, eventually, non-conformal quantum field theories of (n-1)-dimensional extended objects in a d=2n dimensional conformal space-time manifold M. The…