766 research outputs found
Generalised twisted partition functions
We consider the set of partition functions that result from the insertion of
twist operators compatible with conformal invariance in a given 2D Conformal
Field Theory (CFT). A consistency equation, which gives a classification of
twists, is written and solved in particular cases. This generalises old results
on twisted torus boundary conditions, gives a physical interpretation of
Ocneanu's algebraic construction, and might offer a new route to the study of
properties of CFT.Comment: 12 pages, harvmac, 1 Table, 1 Figure . Minor typos corrected, the
figure which had vanished reappears
Conformal Boundary Conditions and what they teach us
The question of boundary conditions in conformal field theories is discussed,
in the light of recent progress. Two kinds of boundary conditions are examined,
along open boundaries of the system, or along closed curves or ``seams''.
Solving consistency conditions known as Cardy equation is shown to amount to
the algebraic problem of finding integer valued representations of (one or two
copies of) the fusion algebra. Graphs encode these boundary conditions in a
natural way, but are also relevant in several aspects of physics ``in the
bulk''. Quantum algebras attached to these graphs contain information on
structure constants of the operator algebra, on the Boltzmann weights of the
corresponding integrable lattice models etc. Thus the study of boundary
conditions in Conformal Field Theory offers a new perspective on several old
physical problems and offers an explicit realisation of recent mathematical
concepts.Comment: Expanded version of lectures given at the Summer School and
Conference Nonperturbative Quantum Field Theoretic Methods and their
Applications, August 2000, Budapest, Hungary. 35 page
Fusion Rings Related to Affine Weyl Groups
The construction of the fusion ring of a quasi-rational CFT based on
at generic level is reviewed. It is a
commutative ring generated by formal characters, elements in the group ring
of the extended affine Weyl group of
. Some partial results towards the
generalisation of this character ring are presented.Comment: 13 pages; two figures. Talk at ``Lie Theory and Its Applications in
Physics III'', Clausthal, 11-14 July, 1999, to appear in the Proceedings,
eds. H.-D. Doebner et a
An Extension of the Character Ring of sl(3) and Its Quantisation
We construct a commutative ring with identity which extends the ring of
characters of finite dimensional representations of sl(3). It is generated by
characters with values in the group ring of the extended affine
Weyl group of at . The `quantised' version at
rational level realises the fusion rules of a WZW conformal field
theory based on admissible representations of .Comment: contains two TeX files: main file using harvmac.tex, amssym.def,
amssym.tex, 35p.; file with figures using XY-pic package, 4p; v2: minor
corrections, Note adde
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