The SCFT/VOA correspondence for twisted class S

Thesis

The correspondence between four-dimensional N = 2 superconformal field theories and vertex operator algebras, when applied to theories of class S, leads to a rich family of vertex algebras that have been given the moniker chiral algebras of class S. These vertex algebras are fascinating from both a physical and mathematical point of view since they furnish novel representations of critical level affine Kac–Moody algebras. A remarkably uniform construction of these vertex operator algebras has been put forward by Tomoyuki Arakawa in [Ara18]. The construction takes as input a choice of simple Lie algebra g, and applies equally well regardless of whether g is simply laced or not. In the non-simply laced case, however, the resulting VOAs do not correspond in any clear way to known four-dimensional theories. On the other hand, the standard realisation of class S theories involving non-simply laced symmetry algebras requires the inclusion of punctures that have been twisted by an outer automorphism of the Lie algebra.

In this thesis, we extend the construction of loc. cit. to theories of class S with twisted punctures. The resulting family of vertex algebras are, simultaneously, modules over two different critical level affine Kac–Moody algebras. We show that our proposal passes a number of consistency checks and establish results on gluing isomorphisms, and the action of generalised S-duality.

Authors: Nair, SS

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-prgd6gn67
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Mathematics