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0 votes
0 answers
64 views

modular properties of macmahon function?

How does the MacMahon function for counting plane partitions $M(q) = \frac{1}{(1-q^n)^n}$ behave under modular transformations? For instance for $q= e^{2 \pi i \tau}$ where $\tau \rightarrow -1/\tau$.
71 votes
3 answers
10k views

What exactly is the relation between string theory and conformal field theory?

Maybe it would be helpful for me to summarize the little bit I think know. A 2D CFT assigns a Hilbert space ${\cal H}$ to a circle and an operator $$A(X): {\cal H}^{\otimes n}\rightarrow {\cal H}^{\...
21 votes
4 answers
3k views

Mathematical predictions of AdS/CFT

What sorts of mathematical statements are predicted by the AdS/CFT correspondence? My "understanding" (term used very loosely) is that this correspondence isn't a mathematically rigorous ...
3 votes
1 answer
213 views

GKO (or coset) construction - all possible highest weights $h$

I am reading the famous paper "Unitary Representations of the Virasoro and Super-Virasoro Algebras" by Goddard, Kent, Olive. From a compact simple Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ and a Lie subalgebra $\...
5 votes
0 answers
122 views

GSO projection and $H^d(M, \mathbb{Z}_2)$

This follows up the comment which suggests that asking the later 2nd part of subquestion in "GSO (Gliozzi-Scherk-Olive) projection and its Mathematics" as a new different question GSO (...
20 votes
1 answer
1k views

Has the conformally field theoretic metric on a Calabi-Yau variety been proved to exist?

Let $(X,g)$ be a compact Kähler manifold. Physics allows us to consider a supersymmetric sigma model with target $(X,g)$, which is a N=2 two-dimensional field theory. From the two-dimensional point ...
4 votes
0 answers
108 views

Moduli spaces for the TCFT map $HH(L) \to GW(X)$

Let $L$ be a Lagrangian submanifold of a closed symplectic manifold $X$. What I gather from Costello (see specifically $\S$2.5 there), is that one expects to have a morphism of closed TCFT's $\tag{1}...
11 votes
2 answers
2k views

Free Boson Correlator $ \langle X(z)X(w) \rangle =- \ln |z - w| $

In physics papers, the massless free boson has a definition involving an action: $$ S(X) = \frac{1}{8\pi} \int d\sigma^2\, \partial X \overline{\partial X}$$ The random functions $X(z)$ are ...
6 votes
0 answers
913 views

Understanding Segal's definition of conformal field theory

I have a fundamental problem in understanding Segal's definition of a conformal field theory: On the one hand his monoidal CFT-functor is a formalization of the fact that, physically, the integrand ...
25 votes
3 answers
3k views

Interpreting the CS/WZW correspondence

It is understood that there is a correspondence between the 3d Chern-Simons topological quantum field theory (TQFT) and the 2d Wess-Zumino-Witten conformal quantum field theory (CQFT). A good summary ...
9 votes
0 answers
320 views

The space-time dimension of the N-superstring theory?

Let $\mathfrak{W}$ be the Lie algebra generated by $d_{n} = ie^{in\theta}\frac{d}{d\theta}$ and $\mathfrak{Vir} = \mathfrak{W} \oplus C \mathbb{C}$ its central extension: $$ [L_m,L_n]=(m-n)L_{m+n}+\...
31 votes
6 answers
8k views

Explanations for mathematicians, about the falsifiability (or not) of string theory [closed]

Like many other mathematicians, I think string theory very attractive. This theory has wonderfully influenced many new topics in mathematics (I myself have worked on one of them), but it's not the ...