We consider conformal nets on $S^1$ of von Neumann algebras, acting on the full Fock space, arising in free probability. These models are twisted local, but non-local. We extend to the non-local case the general analysis of the modular structure. The local algebras turn out to be $III_1$-factors associated with free groups. We use our set up to show examples exhibiting arbitrarily large maximal temperatures, but failing to satisfy the split property, then clarifying the relation between the latter property and the trace class conditions on $e^{-\b L}$, where $L$ is the conformal Hamiltonian.
We describe a coordinate-free perspective on conformal nets, as functors from intervals to von Neumann algebras. We discuss an operation of fusion of intervals and observe that a conformal net takes a fused interval to the fiber product of von Neumann algebras. Though coordinate-free nets do not a priori have vacuum sectors, we show that there is a vacuum sector canonically associated to any circle equipped with a conformal structure. This is the first in a series of papers constructing a 3-category of conformal nets, defects, sectors, and intertwiners.
Conformal nets provides a mathematical model for conformal field theory. We define a notion of defect between conformal nets, formalizing the idea of an interaction between two conformal field theories. We introduce an operation of fusion of defects, and prove that the fusion of two defects is again a defect, provided the fusion occurs over a conformal net of finite index. There is a notion of sector (or bimodule) between two defects, and operations of horizontal and vertical fusion of such sectors. Our most difficult technical result is that the horizontal fusion of the vacuum sectors of two …
An important goal in studying the relations between unitary VOAs and conformal nets is to prove the equivalence of their ribbon categories. In this article, we prove this conjecture for many familiar examples. Our main idea is to construct new structures associated to conformal nets: the categorical extensions.
Motivated by a few preceding papers and a question of R. Longo, we introduce super-KMS functionals for graded translation-covariant nets over R with superderivations, roughly speaking as a certain supersymmetric modification of classical KMS states on translation-covariant nets over R, fundamental objects in chiral algebraic quantum field theory. Although we are able to make a few statements concerning their general structure, most properties will be studied in the setting of specific graded-local (super-) conformal models. In particular, we provide a constructive existence and partial uniquen…
Conformal nets are a mathematical model for conformal field theory, and defects between conformal nets are a model for an interaction or phase transition between two conformal field theories. In the preceding paper of this series, we introduced a notion of composition, called fusion, between defects. We also described a notion of sectors between defects, modeling an interaction among or transformation between phase transitions, and defined fusion composition operations for sectors. In this paper we prove that altogether the collection of conformal nets, defects, sectors, and intertwiners, equi…
We prove that finite-index conformal nets are fully dualizable objects in the 3-category of conformal nets. Therefore, assuming the cobordism hypothesis applies, there exists a local framed topological field theory whose value on the point is any finite-index conformal net. Along the way, we prove a Peter-Weyl theorem for defects between conformal nets, namely that the annular sector of a finite defect is the sum of every sector tensor its dual.
We show that the fixed point subnet of a strongly additive conformal net under the action of a compact group is strongly additive. Using the idea of the proof we define the notion of strong additivity for a pair of conformal nets and we show that a key result about the induction of the pair which we proved previously under the finite index assumption can be generalized to strongly additive pairs of conformal nets. These results are applied to classify conformal nets of central charge $c=1$ which are not necessarily rational and satisfy a spectrum condition.
Conformal nets provide a mathematical formalism for conformal field theory. Associated to a conformal net with finite index, we give a construction of the `bundle of conformal blocks', a representation of the mapping class groupoid of closed topological surfaces into the category of finite-dimensional projective Hilbert spaces. We also construct infinite-dimensional spaces of conformal blocks for topological surfaces with smooth boundary. We prove that the conformal blocks satisfy a factorization formula for gluing surfaces along circles, and an analogous formula for gluing surfaces along inte…
We give a precise definition for when a subfactor arises from a conformal net which can be motivated by classification of defects. We show that a subfactor $N \subset M$ arises from a conformal net if there is a conformal net whose representation category is the quantum double of $N\subset M$.
We describe a coordinate-free notion of conformal nets as a mathematical model of conformal field theory. We define defects between conformal nets and introduce composition of defects, thereby providing a notion of morphism between conformal field theories. Altogether we characterize the algebraic structure of the collection of conformal nets as a symmetric monoidal tricategory. Dualizable objects of this tricategory correspond to conformal-net-valued 3-dimensional local topological quantum field theories. We prove that the dualizable conformal nets are the finite sums of irreducible nets with…
We construct holomorphic local conformal framed nets extended from a tensor power of the Virasoro net with c=1/2 with a pair of binary codes (C,D) satisfying the conditions given by Lam and Yamauchi for holomorphic framed vertex operator algebras. Our result is an operator algebraic counterpart of theirs, but our proof is entirely different. We apply the alpha-induction in order to identify the representation theory of "code local conformal net" and this gives rise to the existence of the desired local conformal net.
We consider KMS states on a local conformal net on the unit circle with respect to rotations. We prove that, if the conformal net is of type I, namely if it admits only type I DHR representations, then the extremal KMS states are the Gibbs states in an irreducible representation. Completely rational nets, the U(1)-current net, the Virasoro nets and their finite tensor products are shown to be of type I. In the completely rational case, we also give a direct proof that all factorial KMS states are Gibbs states.
We classify two-dimensional local conformal nets with parity symmetry and central charge less than 1, up to isomorphism. The maximal ones are in a bijective correspondence with the pairs of A-D-E Dynkin diagrams with the difference of their Coxeter numbers equal to 1. In our previous classification of one-dimensional local conformal nets, Dynkin diagrams D_{2n+1} and E_7 do not appear, but now they do appear in this classification of two-dimensional local conformal nets. Such nets are also characterized as two-dimensional local conformal nets with mu-index equal to 1 and central charge less th…
For a given finite index inclusion of conformal nets $\mathcal{B}\subset \mathcal{A}$ and a group $G < \mathrm{Aut}(\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{B})$, we consider the induction and the restriction procedures for $G$-twisted representations. We define two induction procedures for $G$-twisted representations, which generalize the $α^{\pm}$-induction for DHR endomorphisms. One is defined with the opposite braiding on the category of $G$-twisted representations as in $α^-$-induction. The other is also defined with the braiding, but additionally with the $G$-equivariant structure on the Q-system associate…
Given a completely rational conformal net A on the circle, its fusion ring acts faithfully on the K_0-group of a certain universal C*-algebra associated to A, as shown in a previous paper. We prove here that this action can actually be identified with a Kasparov product, thus paving the way for a fruitful interplay between conformal field theory and KK-theory.
We prove that the category of solitons of a finite index conformal net is a bicommutant category, and that its Drinfel'd center is the category of representations of the conformal net. In the special case of a chiral WZW conformal net with finite index, the second result specializes to the statement that the Drinfel'd center of the category of representations of the based loop group is equivalent to the category of representations of the free loop group. These results were announced in [arXiv:1503.06254].
We construct families of ground state representations of the U(1)-current net and of the Virasoro nets Vir_c with central charge c >= 1. We show that these representations are not covariant with respect to the original dilations, and those on the U(1)-current net are not solitonic. Furthermore, by going to the dual net with respect to the ground state representations of Vir_c, we obtain a possibly new family of Möbius covariant nets on S^1.
We apply an idea of framed vertex operator algebras to a construction of local conformal nets of (injective type III_1) factors on the circle corresponding to various lattice vertex operator algebras and their twisted orbifolds. In particular, we give a local conformal net corresponding to the moonshine vertex operator algebras of Frenkel-Lepowsky-Meurman. Its central charge is 24, it has a trivial representation theory in the sense that the vacuum sector is the only irreducible DHR sector, its vacuum character is the modular invariant J-function and its automorphism group (the gauge group) is…
We completely classify diffeomorphism covariant local nets of von Neumann algebras on the circle with central charge c less than 1. The irreducible ones are in bijective correspondence with the pairs of A-D_{2n}-E_{6,8} Dynkin diagrams such that the difference of their Coxeter numbers is equal to 1. We first identify the nets generated by irreducible representations of the Virasoro algebra for c<1 with certain coset nets. Then, by using the classification of modular invariants for the minimal models by Cappelli-Itzykson-Zuber and the method of alpha-induction in subfactor theory, we classify a…
This article develops new techniques for understanding the relationship between the three different mathematical formulations of two-dimensional chiral conformal field theory: conformal nets (axiomatizing local observables), vertex operator algebras (axiomatizing fields), and Segal CFTs. It builds upon previous work which introduced a geometric interpolation procedure for constructing conformal nets from VOAs via Segal CFT, simultaneously relating all three frameworks. In this article, we extend this construction to study the relationship between the representation theory of conformal nets and…
In this paper we prove a general theorem on the extensions of local nets which was inspired by recent examples of exotic extensions for Virasoro nets with central charge less than one and earlier work on cosets and conformal inclusions. When applying the theorem to conformal inclusions and diagonal inclusions, we obtain infinite series of new examples of completely rational nets.
We consider the entanglement entropy for a spacetime region and its spacelike complement in the framework of algebraic quantum field theory. For a Möbius covariant local net satisfying a certain nuclearity property, we consider the von Neumann entropy for type I factors between local algebras and introduce an entropic quantity. Then we implement a cutoff on this quantity with respect to the conformal Hamiltonian and show that it remains finite as the distance of two intervals tends to zero. We compare our definition to others in the literature.
We show that any solitonic representation of a conformal (diffeomorphism covariant) net on S^1 has positive energy and construct an uncountable family of mutually inequivalent solitonic representations of any conformal net, using nonsmooth diffeomorphisms. On the loop group nets, we show that these representations induce representations of the subgroup of loops compactly supported in S^1 \ {-1} which do not extend to the whole loop group. In the case of the U(1)-current net, we extend the diffeomorphism covariance to the Sobolev diffeomorphisms D^s(S^1), s > 2, and show that the positive-energ…
We describe the role conformal nets, a mathematical model for conformal field theory, could play in a geometric definition of the generalized cohomology theory TMF of topological modular forms. Inspired by work of Segal and Stolz-Teichner, we speculate that bundles of boundary conditions for the net of free fermions will be the basic underlying objects representing TMF-cohomology classes. String structures, which are the fundamental orientations for TMF-cohomology, can be encoded by defects between free fermions, and we construct the bundle of fermionic boundary conditions for the TMF-Euler cl…
In this paper we study representations of conformal nets associated with positive definite even lattices and their orbifolds with respect to isometries of the lattices. Using previous general results on orbifolds, we give a list of all irreducible representations of the orbifolds, which generate a unitary modular tensor category.
We give an exposition on the current status of classification of operator algebraic conformal field theories. We explain roles of complete rationality and alpha-induction for nets of subfactors in such a classification and present the current classification result, a joint work with R. Longo, for the case with central charge less than 1, where we have a complete classification list consisting of the Virasoro nets, their simple current extensions of index 2, and four exceptionals. Two of the four exceptionals appear to be new.
In this article we give new examples of models in boundary quantum field theory, i.e. local time-translation covariant nets of von Neumann algebras, using a recent construction of Longo and Witten, which uses a local conformal net A on the real line together with an element of a unitary semigroup associated with A. Namely, we compute elements of this semigroup coming from Hölder continuous symmetric inner functions for a family of (completely rational) conformal nets which can be obtained by starting with nets of real subspaces, passing to its second quantization nets and taking local extensio…
Given an (irreducible) Mobius covariant net $\mathcal A$, we prove a Bisognano-Wichmann theorem for its categorical extension $\mathscr E^{\textrm{d}}$ associated to the braided $C^*$-tensor category $\textrm{Rep}^{\textrm{d}}(\mathcal A)$ of dualizable (more precisely "dualized") Mobius covariant $\mathcal A$-modules. As a closely related result, we prove a (modified) Bisognano-Wichmann theorem for any (possibly) non-local extension of $\mathcal A$ obtained by a $C^*$-Frobenius algebra $Q$ in $\textrm{Rep}^{\textrm{d}}(\mathcal A)$. As an application, we discuss the relation between the domai…
We show that all isomorphism classes of even rank Tambara-Yamagami categories arise as $\mathbb{Z}_2$-twisted representations of conformal nets. As a consequence, we show that their Drinfel'd centers are realized by (generalized) orbifolds of conformal nets associated with (self-dual) lattices. The quantum double subfactors of even rank Tambara-Yamagami categories are Bisch-Haagerup subfactors and we describe their (dual) principal graphs. For every abelian group of odd order the Drinfel'd centers of the associated Tambara-Yamagami categories give a fusion ring generalizing the Verlinde ring $…
Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a completely rational local Möbius covariant net on $S^1$, which describes a set of chiral observables. We show that local Möbius covariant nets $\mathcal{B}_2$ on 2D Minkowski space which contains $\mathcal{A}$ as chiral left-right symmetry are in one-to-one correspondence with Morita equivalence classes of Q-systems in the unitary modular tensor category $\mathrm{DHR}(\mathcal{A})$. The Möbius covariant boundary conditions with symmetry $\mathcal{A}$ of such a net $\mathcal{B}_2$ are given by the Q-systems in the Morita equivalence class or by simple objects in the modul…
Let $\mathcal{B}$ be a conformal net. We give the notion of a proper action of a finite hypergroup acting by vacuum preserving unital completely positive (so-called stochastic) maps, which generalizes the proper actions of finite groups. Taking fixed points under such an action gives a finite index subnet $\mathcal{B}^K$ of $\mathcal{B}$, which generalizes the $G$-orbifold. Conversely, we show that if $\mathcal{A}\subset \mathcal{B}$ is a finite inclusion of conformal nets, then $\mathcal{A}$ is a generalized orbifold $\mathcal{A}=\mathcal{B}^K$ of the conformal net $\mathcal{B}$ by a unique f…
A Moebius covariant net of von Neumann algebras on S^1 is diffeomorphism covariant if its Moebius symmetry extends to diffeomorphism symmetry. We prove that in case the net is either a Virasoro net or any at least 4-regular net such an extension is unique: the local algebras together with the Moebius symmetry (equivalently: the local algebras together with the vacuum vector) completely determine it. We draw the two following conclusions for such theories. (1) The value of the central charge c is an invariant and hence the Virasoro nets for different values of c are not isomorphic as Moebius co…
This PhD thesis focuses on local conformal nets of von Neumann algebras on the circle. For a more detailed description of its content and of the results published within, see its preface.
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 two mathematical formulations of chiral CFT, the one based on vertex operator algebras (VOAs) and the one based on conformal nets. We describe some recent results which, for first time, gives a general construction of conformal nets from (unitary) VOAs.
We explore new connections between the fields and local observables in two dimensional chiral conformal field theory. We show that in a broad class of examples, the von Neumann algebras of local observables (a conformal net) can be obtained from the fields (a unitary vertex operator algebra) via a continuous geometric interpolation procedure involving Graeme Segal's functorial definition of conformal field theory. In particular, we construct conformal nets from these unitary vertex operator algebras by showing that 'geometrically mollified' versions of the fields yield bounded, local operators…
The paper deals with $C^*$-algebras generated by a net of Hilbert spaces over a partially ordered set. The family of those algebras constitutes a net of $C^*$-algebras over the same set. It is shown that every such an algebra is graded by the first homotopy group of the partially ordered set. We consider inductive systems of $C^*$-algebras and their limits over maximal directed subsets. We also study properties of morphisms for nets of Hilbert spaces as well as nets of $C^*$-algebras.
We consider unitary simple vertex operator algebras whose vertex operators satisfy certain energy bounds and a strong form of locality and call them strongly local. We present a general procedure which associates to every strongly local vertex operator algebra V a conformal net A_V acting on the Hilbert space completion of V and prove that the isomorphism class of A_V does not depend on the choice of the scalar product on V. We show that the class of strongly local vertex operator algebras is closed under taking tensor products and unitary subalgebras and that, for every strongly local vertex …
We study the representation theory of a conformal net A on the circle from a K-theoretical point of view using its universal C*-algebra C*(A). We prove that if A satisfies the split property then, for every representation πof A with finite statistical dimension, π(C*(A)) is weakly closed and hence a finite direct sum of type I_\infty factors. We define the more manageable locally normal universal C*-algebra C*_ln(A) as the quotient of C*(A) by its largest ideal vanishing in all locally normal representations and we investigate its structure. In particular, if A is completely rational with n se…
The present paper deals with the question of representability of nets of C*-algebras whose underlying poset, indexing the net, is not upward directed. A particular class of nets, called C*-net bundles, is classified in terms of C*-dynamical systems having as group the fundamental group of the poset. Any net of C*-algebras embeds into a unique C*-net bundle, the enveloping net bundle, which generalizes the notion of universal C*-algebra given by Fredenhagen to nonsimply connected posets. This allows a classification of nets; in particular, we call injective those nets having a faithful embeddin…
We provide an Operator Algebraic approach to N=2 chiral Conformal Field Theory and set up the Noncommutative Geometric framework. Compared to the N=1 case, the structure here is much richer. There are naturally associated nets of spectral triples and the JLO cocycles separate the Ramond sectors. We construct the N=2 superconformal nets of von Neumann algebras in general, classify them in the discrete series c<3, and we define and study an operator algebraic version of the N=2 spectral flow. We prove the coset identification for the N=2 super-Virasoro nets with c<3, a key result whose equivalen…
We study the general structure of Fermi conformal nets of von Neumann algebras on the circle, consider a class of topological representations, the general representations, that we characterize as Neveu-Schwarz or Ramond representations, in particular a Jones index can be associated with each of them. We then consider a supersymmetric general representation associated with a Fermi modular net and give a formula involving the Fredholm index of the supercharge operator and the Jones index. We then consider the net associated with the super-Virasoro algebra and discuss its structure. If the centra…
We present a procedure to construct families of local, massive and interacting Haag-Kastler nets on the two-dimensional spacetime through an operator-algebraic method. An existence proof of local observable is given without relying on modular nuclearity. By a similar technique, another family of wedge-local nets is constructed using certain endomorphisms of conformal nets recently studied by Longo and Witten.
Certain duality of relative entropy can fail for chiral conformal net with nontrivial representations. In this paper we quantify such statement by defining a quantity which measures the failure of such duality, and identify this quantity with relative entropy and global index associated with multi-interval subfactors for a large class of conformal nets. In particular we show that the duality holds for a large class of conformal nets if and only if they are holomorphic. The same argument also applies to CFT in two dimensions. In particular we show that the duality holds for a large class of CFT…
We present recent progress in theory of local conformal nets which is an operator algebraic approach to study chiral conformal field theory. We emphasize representation theoretic aspects and relations to theory of vertex operator algebras which gives a different and algebraic formulation of chiral conformal field theory.
We prove an equivalence between the following notions: (i) unitary Möbius vertex algebras, and (ii) Wightman conformal field theories on the circle (with finite-dimensional conformal weight spaces) satisfying an additional condition that we call uniformly bounded order. Reading this equivalence in one direction, we obtain new analytic and operator-theoretic information about vertex operators. In the other direction we characterize OPEs of Wightman fields and show they satisfy the axioms of a vertex algebra. As an application we establish new results linking unitary vertex operator algebras wit…
Given a local quantum field theory net A on the de Sitter spacetime dS^d, where geodesic observers are thermalized at Gibbons-Hawking temperature, we look for observers that feel to be in a ground state, i.e. particle evolutions with positive generator, providing a sort of converse to the Hawking-Unruh effect. Such positive energy evolutions always exist as noncommutative flows, but have only a partial geometric meaning, yet they map localized observables into localized observables. We characterize the local conformal nets on dS^d. Only in this case our positive energy evolutions have a comple…
