FLAT CONNECTIONS FOR CHARACTERS IN IRRATIONAL CONFORMAL FIELD THEORY

Abstract

Following the paradigm on the sphere, we begin the study of irrational conformal field theory (ICFT) on the torus. In particular, we find that the affine-Virasoro characters of ICFT satisfy heatlike differential equations with flat connections. As a first example, we solve the system for the general g/h coset construction, obtaining an integral representation for the general coset characters. In a second application, we solve for the high-level characters of the general ICFT on simple g, noting a simplification for the subspace of theories which possess a nontrivial symmetry group. Finally, we give a geometric formulation of the system in which the flat connections are generalized Laplacians on the centrally extended loop group.