The well-known modular property of the torus characters and torus partition functions of (rational) vertex operator algebras (VOAs) and 2d conformal field theories (CFTs) has been an invaluable tool for studying this class of theories. In this work we prove that sphere four-point chiral blocks of rational VOAs are vector-valued modular forms for the groups $Γ(2)$, $Γ_0(2)$, or $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$. Moreover, we prove that the four-point correlators, combining the holomorphic and anti-holomorphic chiral blocks, are modular invariant. In particular, in this language the crossing symmetries are simply modular symmetries. This gives the possibility of exploiting the available techniques and knowledge about modular forms to determine or constrain the physically interesting quantities such as chiral blocks and fusion coefficients, which we illustrate with a few examples. We also highlight the existence of a sphere-torus correspondence equating the sphere quantities of certain theories ${\mathcal T}_s$ with the torus quantities of another family of theories ${\mathcal T}_t$. A companion paper will delve into more examples and explore more systematically this sphere-torus duality.
An explicit check of the AGT relation between the W_N-symmetry controlled conformal blocks and U(N) Nekrasov functions requires knowledge of the Shapovalov matrix and various triple correlators for W-algebra descendants. We collect simplest expressions of this type for N=3 and for the two lowest descendant levels, together with the detailed derivations, which can be now computerized and used in more general studies of conformal blocks and AGT relations at higher levels.
We derive and solve the difference equations on the toric modular kernel following from the consistency relations in the fusion algebra. The result is explicit and simple series expansion for the toric modular kernel of non-degenerate Virasoro conformal blocks. We show that this expansion is equivalent to the celebrated integral representation due to B. Ponsot and J. Teschner. We also interpret obtained series representation as a non-perturbative expansion and note that this raises further questions.
Gukov-Pei-Putrov-Vafa constructed $q$-series invariants called homological blocks in a physical way in order to categorify Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev (WRT) invariants and conjectured that radial limits of homological blocks are WRT invariants. In this paper, we prove their conjecture for unimodular H-graphs. As a consequence, it turns out that the WRT invariants of H-graphs yield quantum modular forms of depth two and of weight one with the quantum set $\mathbb{Q}$. In the course of the proof of our main theorem, we first write the invariants as finite sums of rational functions. We second carr…
On the space of generic conformal blocks the modular transformation of the underlying surface is realized as a linear integral transformation. We show that the analytic properties of conformal block implied by Zamolodchikov's formula are shared by the kernel of the modular transformation and illustrate this by explicit computation in the case of the one-point toric conformal block.
We construct modular linear differential equations (MLDEs) w.r.t. subgroups of the modular group whose solutions are Virasoro conformal blocks appearing in the expansion of a crossing symmetric 4-point correlator on the sphere. This uses a connection between crossing transformations and modular transformations. We focus specifically on second order MLDEs with the cases of all identical and pairwise identical operators in the correlator. The central charge, the dimensions of the above operators and those of the intermediate ones are expressed in terms of parameters that occur in such MLDEs. In …
A recent claim that the S-duality between 4d SUSY gauge theories, which is AGT related to the modular transformations of 2d conformal blocks, is no more than an ordinary Fourier transform at the perturbative level, is further traced down to the commutation relation [P,Q]=-i\hbar between the check-operator monodromies of the exponential resolvent operator in the underlying Dotsenko-Fateev matrix models and beta-ensembles. To this end, we treat the conformal blocks as eigenfunctions of the monodromy check operators, what is especially simple in the case of one-point toric block. The kernel of th…
The modular matrix for the generic 1-point conformal blocks on the torus is expressed in terms of the fusion matrix for the 4-point blocks on the sphere. The modular invariance of the toric 1-point functions in the Liouville field theory with DOZZ structure constants is proved.
We study the entanglement entropy and the modular Hamiltonian of slightly excited states reduced to a ball shaped region in generic conformal field theories. We set up a formal expansion in the one point functions of the state in which all orders are explicitly given in terms of integrals of multi-point functions along the vacuum modular flow, without a need for replica index analytic continuation. We show that the quadratic order contributions in this expansion can be calculated in a way expected from holography, namely via the bulk canonical energy for the entanglement entropy, and its varia…
This is the second part of the paper (the first part is published in Jour. of AMS, vol.9, 1135--1170, q-alg/9508017). In the first part, we defined for every modular tensor category (MTC) inner products on the spaces of morphisms and proved that the inner product on the space $\Hom (\bigoplus X_i\otimes X^*_i, U)$ is modular invariant. Also, we have shown that in the case of the MTC arising from the representations of the quantum group $U_q \sln$ at roots of unity and $U$ being a symmetric power of the fundamental representation, this inner product coincides with so-called Macdonald's inner pr…
We consider the construction of genus zero correlators of $SU(N)_k$ WZW models involving two Kac Moody primaries in the fundamental and two in the anti-fundamental representation from modular averaging of the contribution of the vacuum conformal block. In cases where we find the orbit of the vacuum conformal block to be finite, modular averaging reproduces the exact result for the correlators. In other cases, we perform the modular averaging numerically, the results are in agreement with the exact answers. We find a close relationship between the modular averaging sums of the theories related …
We derive an asymptotic formula for operator product expansion coefficients of heavy operators in two dimensional conformal field theory. This follows from modular invariance of the genus two partition function, and generalises the asymptotic formula for the density of states from torus modular invariance. The resulting formula is universal, depending only on the central charge, but involves the asymptotic behaviour of genus two conformal blocks. We use monodromy techniques to compute the asymptotics of the relevant blocks at large central charge to determine the behaviour explicitly.
We study modular properties of the AdS3 WZNW model. Although the Euclidean partition function is modular invariant, the characters on the Euclidean torus are ill-defined and their modular transformations are unknown. We reconsider the characters defined on the Lorentzian torus, focusing on their structure as distributions. We find a generalized S matrix, depending on the sign of the real modular parameters, which has two diagonal blocks and one off-diagonal block, mixing discrete and continuous representations, that we fully determine. We then explore the relations among the modular transforma…
We apply the theory of $α$-induction of sectors which we elaborated in our previous paper to several nets of subfactors arising from conformal field theory. The main application are conformal embeddings and orbifold inclusions of SU(n) WZW models. For the latter, we construct the extended net of factors by hand. Developing further some ideas of F. Xu, our treatment leads canonically to certain fusion graphs, and in all our examples we rediscover the graphs Di Francesco, Petkova and Zuber associated empirically to the corresponding SU(n) modular invariants. We establish a connection between exp…
We construct an infinite class of eigenmodes with integer eigenvalues for the Vacuum Modular Hamiltonian of a single interval $N$ in 2d CFT and study some of its interesting properties, which includes its action on OPE blocks as well as its bulk duals. Our analysis suggests that these eigenmodes, like the OPE blocks have a natural description on the so called kinematic space of CFT$_2$ and in particular realize the Virasoro algebra of the theory on this kinematic space. Taken together, our results hints at the possibility of an effective description of the CFT$_2$ in the kinematic space langua…
We study the correspondence between four-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories and two-dimensional conformal field theories in the case of N=2* gauge theory. We emphasize the genus expansion on the gauge theory side, as obtained via geometric engineering from the topological string. This point of view uncovers modular properties of the one-point conformal block on a torus with complexified intermediate momenta: in the large intermediate weight limit, it is a power series whose coefficients are quasi-modular forms. The all-genus viewpoint that the conformal field theory approach lends to th…
Two dimensional field theories invariant under the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) group are conjectured to be dual to asymptotically flat spacetimes in three dimensions. In this paper, we continue our investigations of the modular properties of these field theories. In particular, we focus on the BMS torus one-point function. We use two different methods to arrive at expressions for asymptotic structure constants for general states in the theory utilising modular properties of the torus one-point function. We then concentrate on the BMS highest weight representation, and derive a host of new result…
We study the Virasoro conformal block decomposition of the genus two partition function of a two-dimensional CFT by expanding around a Z3-invariant Riemann surface that is a three-fold cover of the Riemann sphere branched at four points, and explore constraints from genus two modular invariance and unitarity. In particular, we find 'critical surfaces' that constrain the structure constants of a CFT beyond what is accessible via the crossing equation on the sphere.
The recursive relation for the 1-point conformal block on a torus is derived and used to prove the identities between conformal blocks recently conjectured by R. Poghossian. As an illustration of the efficiency of the recurrence method the modular invariance of the 1-point Liouville correlation function is numerically analyzed.
Virasoro Conformal Blocks and modular functor from Liouville CFT
Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, Peking University（北京大学北京国际数学研究中心）；Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Laboratoire de mathématiques d’Orsay（巴黎萨克雷大学，法国国家科学研究中心，奥赛数学实验室）；University of Helsinki, Department of Mathematics and Statistics（赫尔辛基大学数学与统计系）；Aix-Marseille University, Institut de Mathématiques de Marseille (I2M), and Institut Universitaire de France (IUF)（艾克斯-马赛大学，马赛数学研究所（I2M），法国大学研究院（IUF））
We investigate the constraints of crossing symmetry on CFT correlation functions. Four point conformal blocks are naturally viewed as functions on the upper-half plane, on which crossing symmetry acts by PSL(2,Z) modular transformations. This allows us to construct a unique, crossing symmetric function out of a given conformal block by averaging over PSL(2,Z). In some two dimensional CFTs the correlation functions are precisely equal to the modular average of the contributions of a finite number of light states. For example, in the two dimensional Ising and tri-critical Ising model CFTs, the c…
We study half-BPS surface operators in N=2 supersymmetric QCD in four dimensions with gauge group SU(2) and four fundamental flavours. We compute the twisted chiral superpotential that describes the effective theory on the surface operator using equivariant localization as well as the Seiberg-Witten data. We then use the constraints imposed by S-duality to resum the instanton contributions to the twisted superpotential into elliptic functions and (quasi-) modular forms. The resummed results match what one would obtain from the description of surface operators as the insertion of a degenerate o…
The AGT relations reduce S-duality to the modular transformations of conformal blocks. It was recently conjectured that for the four-point conformal block the modular transform up to the non-perturbative contributions can be written in form of the ordinary Fourier transform when $β\equiv-ε_1/ε_2=1$. Here we extend this conjecture to general values of $ε_1,ε_2$. Namely, we argue that for a properly normalized four-point conformal block the S-duality is perturbatively given by the Fourier transform for arbitrary values of the deformation parameters $ε_1,ε_2$. The conjecture is based on explicit …
