Related papers: Topological and conformal field theory as Frobeniu…
We formulate two-dimensional rational conformal field theory as a natural generalization of two-dimensional lattice topological field theory. To this end we lift various structures from complex vector spaces to modular tensor categories.…
We review how modular categories, and commutative and non-commutative Frobenius algebras arise in rational conformal field theory. For Euclidean CFT we use an approach based on sewing of surfaces, and in the Minkowskian case we describe CFT…
A modular tensor category provides the appropriate data for the construction of a three-dimensional topological field theory. We describe the following analogue for two-dimensional conformal field theories: a 2-category whose objects are…
This is an invited contribution to the 2nd edition of the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics. We review the following algebraic structures which appear in two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT): The symmetries of two-dimensional…
This thesis contains results relevant for two different classes of conformal field theory. We partly treat rational conformal field theory, but also derive results that aim at a better understanding of logarithmic conformal field theory.…
The interpretation of D-branes in terms of open strings has lead to much interest in boundary conditions of two-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs). These studies have deepened our understanding of CFT and allowed us to develop new…
Motivated by the three-dimensional topological field theory / two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) correspondence, we study a broad class of one-dimensional quantum mechanical models, known as anyonic chains, that can give rise to…
Two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) has several sources: the search for simple examples of quantum field theory, the description of surface critical phenomena, the study of (super)string vacua. In the present overview of the…
A conformal field theory (CFT) is a quantum field theory which is invariant under conformal transformations; a group action that preserve angles but not necessarily lengths. There are two traditional approaches to the construction of CFTs:…
Starting from an abelian rigid braided monoidal category C we define an abelian rigid monoidal category C_F which captures some aspects of perturbed conformal defects in two-dimensional conformal field theory. Namely, for V a rational…
This lecture series is based on joint work in progress with Shaul Barkan, as well as work in progress of the author. The five sections of these notes correspond to the five lectures, but more details have been added. $2$-dimensional…
Rational conformal field theories produce a tower of finite-dimensional representations of surface mapping class groups, acting on the conformal blocks of the theory. We review this formalism. We show that many recent mathematical…
Conformal quantum field theory is reviewed in the perspective of Axiomatic, notably Algebraic QFT. This theory is particularly developped in two spacetime dimensions, where many rigorous constructions are possible, as well as some complete…
Mostly self-contained script on functorial topological quantum field theories. These notes give a slow introduction to the basic notions of category theory which serve a closer investigation of cobordisms and (commutative) Frobenius…
This thesis provides an introduction to the various category theory ideas employed in topological quantum field theory. These theories are viewed as symmetric monoidal functors from topological cobordism categories into the category of…
Topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) are symmetric monoidal functors out of cobordism categories. In dimension two, oriented TQFTs are famously classified by commutative Frobenius algebras. In the unoriented setting, the…
Among (conformal) quantum field theories, the rational conformal field theories are singled out by the fact that their correlators can be constructed from a modular tensor category C with a distinguished object, a symmetric special…
In two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) the building blocks are given by chiral CFTs, i.e.~CFTs on the unit circle (compactified light-ray). They are generated by quantum fields depending on one light-ray coordinate only. There are…
We introduce the category of singular 2-dimensional cobordisms and show that it admits a completely algebraic description as the free symmetric monoidal category on a twin Frobenius algebra, by providing a description of this category in…
We study a special sort of 2-dimensional extended Topological Quantum Field Theories (TQFTs) which we call open-closed TQFTs. These are defined on open-closed cobordisms by which we mean smooth compact oriented 2-manifolds with corners that…