Related papers: Irrational Conformal Field Theory on the Sphere an…
This is a review of irrational conformal field theory, which includes rational conformal field theory as a small subspace. Central topics of the review include the Virasoro master equation, its solutions and the dynamics of irrational…
In this talk, I will review the foundations of irrational conformal field theory (ICFT), which includes rational conformal field theory as a small subspace. Highlights of the review include the Virasoro master equation, the Ward identities…
Following the paradigm on the sphere, we begin the study of irrational conformal field theory (ICFT) on the torus. In particular, we find that the affine-Virasoro characters of ICFT satisfy heat-like differential equations with flat…
Irrational conformal field theory (ICFT) includes rational conformal field theory as a small subspace, and the affine-Virasoro Ward identities describe the biconformal correlators of ICFT. We reformulate the Ward identities as an equivalent…
An elliptic version of quantum groups is proposed. It comes form the quantization of the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov- Bernard equation on the torus. The relation with elliptic IRF models is explained.
The generalized Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations of irrational conformal field theory provide a uniform description of rational and irrational conformal field theory. Starting from the known high-level solution of these equations, we first…
We discuss the problem to develop a mathematical theory of a certain class of nonrational conformal field theories (CFT) which contain the unitary CFT. A variant of the concept of a modular functor is proposed that appears to be suitable…
We study the connection between Rational Conformal Field Theory (RCFT), $N=2$ massive supersymmetric field theory, and solvable Interaction Round the Face (IRF) lattice models. Specifically, one identifies the fusion rings with the chiral…
This is a set of introductory lecture notes on conformal field theory. Unlike most existing reviews on the subject, CFT is presented here from the perspective of a unitary quantum field theory in Minkowski space-time. It begins with a…
Critical statistical mechanics and Conformal Field Theory (CFT) are conjecturally connected since the seminal work of Beliavin, Polyakov, and Zamolodchikov [BPZ84a]. Both exhibit exactly solvable structures in two dimensions. A…
Boundary conformal field theory (BCFT) is simply the study of conformal field theory (CFT) in domains with a boundary. It gains its significance because, in some ways, it is mathematically simpler: the algebraic and geometric structures of…
We study conformal field theories (CFTs) on curved spaces including both orientable and unorientable manifolds possibly with boundaries. We first review conformal transformations on curved manifolds. We then compute the identity components…
A mathematical construction of the conformal field theory (CFT) associated to a compact torus, also called the "nonlinear Sigma-model" or "lattice-CFT", is given. Underlying this approach to CFT is a unitary modular functor, the…
We systematically study how the integrality of the conformal characters shapes the space of fermionic rational conformal field theories in two dimensions. The integrality suggests that conformal characters on torus with a given choice of…
A conformal field theory can be recovered, via the Kontsevich-Miwa transform, as a solution to the Virasoro constraints on the KP tau function. That theory, which we call KM CFT, consists of d \leq 1 matter plus a scalar and a dressing…
The conformal field theory on a Z_N-surface is studied by mapping it on the branched sphere. Using a coulomb gas formalism we construct the minimal models of the theory.
Unlike conformal boundary conditions, conformal defects of Virasoro minimal models lack classification. Alternatively to the defect perturbation theory and the truncated conformal space approach, we employ open string field theory (OSFT)…
We review some aspects of logarithmic conformal field theories which might shed some light on the geometrical meaning of logarithmic operators. We consider an approach, put forward by V. Knizhnik, where computation of correlation functions…
We construct a non-chiral conformal field theory (CFT) on the torus that accommodates a second quantization of the elliptic Calogero-Sutherland (eCS) model. We show that the CFT operator that provides this second quantization defines, at…
We propose a novel approach to study conformal field theories (CFTs) in general dimensions. In the conformal bootstrap program, one usually searches for consistent CFT data that satisfy crossing symmetry. In the new approach, we reverse the…