Ramond-Ramond Fields, Fractional Branes and Orbifold Differential K-Theory

We study D-branes and Ramond-Ramond fields on global orbifolds of Type II string theory with vanishing H-flux using methods of equivariant K-theory and K-homology. We illustrate how Bredon equivariant cohomology naturally realizes stringy orbifold cohomology. We emphasize its role as the correct cohomological tool which captures known features of the low-energy effective field theory, and which provides new consistency conditions for fractional D-branes and Ramond-Ramond fields on orbifolds. We use an equivariant Chern character from equivariant K-theory to Bredon cohomology to define new Ramond-Ramond couplings of D-branes which generalize previous examples. We propose a definition for groups of differential characters associated to equivariant K-theory. We derive a Dirac quantization rule for Ramond-Ramond fluxes, and study flat Ramond-Ramond potentials on orbifolds.     

The operator algebra of orbifold models

We analyze the chiral properties of (orbifold) conformal field theories which are obtained from a given conformal field theory by modding out by a finite symmetry group. For a class of orbifolds, we derive the fusion rules by studying the modular transformation properties of the one-loop characters. The results are illustrated with explicit calculations of toroidal andc=1 models.     

Linear bosonic quantum field theories arising from causal variational principles

We describe discrete symmetries of two-dimensional Yang–Mills theory with gauge group G associated with outer automorphisms of G, and their corresponding defects. We show that the gauge theory partition function with defects can be computed as a path integral over the space of twisted G-bundles and calculate it exactly. We argue that its weak-coupling limit computes the symplectic volume of the moduli space of flat twisted G-bundles on a surface. Using the defect network approach to generalised orbifolds, we gauge the discrete symmetry and construct the corresponding orbifold theory, which is again two-dimensional Yang–Mills theory but with gauge group given by an extension of G by outer automorphisms. With the help of the orbifold completion of the topological defect bicategory of two-dimensional Yang–Mills theory, we describe the reverse orbifold using a Wilson line defect for the discrete gauge symmetry. We present our results using two complementary approaches: in the lattice regularisation of the path integral, and in the functorial approach to area-dependent quantum field theories with defects via regularised Frobenius algebras.

     

Equivariant quantization of orbifolds

Equivariant quantization is a new theory that highlights the role of symmetries in the relationship between classical and quantum dynamical systems. These symmetries are also one of the reasons for the recent interest in quantization of singular spaces, orbifolds, stratified spaces, etc. In this work, we prove the existence of an equivariant quantization for orbifolds. Our construction combines an appropriate desingularization of any Riemannian orbifold by a foliated smooth manifold, with the foliated equivariant quantization that we built in Poncin et al. (2009) [19]. Further, we suggest definitions of the common geometric objects on orbifolds, which capture the nature of these spaces and guarantee, together with the properties of the mentioned foliated resolution, the needed correspondences between singular objects of the orbifold and the respective foliated objects of its desingularization.     

Solitons in Affine and Permutation Orbifolds

We consider properties of solitons in general orbifolds in the algebraic quantum field theory framework and constructions of solitons in affine and permutation orbifolds. Under general conditions we show that our construction gives all the twisted representations of the fixed point subnet. This allows us to prove a number of conjectures: in the affine orbifold case we clarify the issue of fixed point resolutions; in the permutation orbifold case we determine all irreducible representations of the orbifold, and we also determine the fusion rules in a nontrivial case, which imply an integral property of chiral data for any completely rational conformal net.Supported in part by NSF.Supported in part by GNAMPA-INDAM and MIUR.Supported in part by NSF.     

Chern-Simons gauge theory on orbifolds: Open strings from three dimensions

Chern-Simons gauge theory is formulated on three-dimensional $\text{Z}$₂ orbifolds. The locus of singular points on a given orbifold is equivalent to a link of Wilson lines. This allows one to reduce any correlation function on orbifolds to a sum of more complicated correlation functions in the simpler theory on manifolds. Chern-Simons theory on manifolds is known to be related to two-dimensional (2D) conformal field theory (CFT) on closed-string surfaces; here it is shown that the theory on orbifolds is related to 2D CFT of unoriented closed- and open-string models, i.e. to worldsheet orbifold models. In particular, the boundary components of the worldsheet correspond to the components of the singular locus in the 3D orbifold. This correspondence leads to a simple identification of the open-string spectra, including their Chan-Paton degeneration, in terms of fusing Wilson lines in the corresponding Chern-Simons theory. The correspondence is studied in detail, and some exactly solvable examples are presented. Some of these examples indicate that it is natural to think of the orbifold group $\text{Z}$₂ as a part of the gauge group of the Chern-Simons theory, thus generalizing the standard definition of gauge theories.     

Transport processes in magnetically confined plasmas in the nonlinear regime

A field theory approach to transport phenomena in magnetically confined plasmas is presented. The thermodynamic field theory (TFT), previously developed for treating the generic thermodynamic system out of equilibrium, is applied to plasmas physics. Transport phenomena are treated here as the effect of the field linking the thermodynamic forces with their conjugate flows combined with statistical mechanics. In particular, the Classical and the Pfirsch-Schluter regimes are analyzed by solving the thermodynamic field equations of the TFT in the weak-field approximation. We found that, the TFT does not correct the expressions of the ionic heat fluxes evaluated by the neoclassical theory in these two regimes. On the other hand, the fluxes of matter and electronic energy (heat flow) is further enhanced in the nonlinear Classical and Pfirsch-Schluter regimes. These results seem to be in line with the experimental observations. The complete set of the electronic and ionic transport equations in the nonlinear Banana regime, is also reported. A paper showing the comparison between our theoretic results and the experimental observations in the JET machine is currently in preparation.     

Geometry and integrability of topological-antitopological fusion

Integrability of equations of topological-antitopological fusion (being proposed by Cecotti and Vafa) describing the ground state metric on a given 2D topological field theory (TFT) model, is proved. For massive TFT models these equations are reduced to a universal form (being independent on the given TFT model) by gauge transformations. For massive perturbations of topological conformal field theory models the separatrix solutions of the equations bounded at infinity are found by the isomonodromy deformations method. Also it is shown that the ground state metric together with some part of the underlined TFT structure can be parametrized by pluriharmonic maps of the coupling space to the symmetric space of real positive definite quadratic forms.     

Introduction to Conformal Field Theory

An elementary introduction to conformal field theory is given. Topics include free bosons and fermions, orbifolds, affine Lie algebras, coset conformal field theories, superconformal theories, correlation functions on the sphere, partition functions and modular invariance.     

An orbifold relative index theorem

In this paper we prove a relative index theorem for pairs of generalized Dirac operators on orbifolds which are the same at infinity. This generalizes to orbifolds a celebrated theorem of Gromov and Lawson.     

Global anomalies on orbifolds

We consider global anomalies for heterotic string theory formulated on orbifolds. The vanishing of certain characteristic classes in group cohomology provides sufficient conditions for the absence of global anomalies. For abelian orbifolds level matching implies these cohomology conditions, so suffices for the absence of anomalies. For nonabelian orbifolds level matching does not suffice, and there are additional constraints. We give some examples to illustrate these new constraints.The first author is partially supported by an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. The second author is supported in part by the NSF contract no. PHY 82-15249, and in part by a fellowship from the Harvard Society of Fellows     

Birationality of Berglund–Hübsch–Krawitz Mirrors

We investigate a multiple mirror phenomenon arising from Berglund–Hübsch–Krawitz mirror symmetry. We prove that the different mirror Calabi–Yau orbifolds which arise in this context are in fact birational to one another.     

Stable singularities in string theory

We study a topological obstruction of a very stringy nature concerned with deforming the target space of anN=2 non-linear -model. This target space has a singularity which may be smoothed away according to the conventional rules of geometry, but when one studies the associated conformal field theory one sees that such a deformation is not possible without a discontinuous change in some of the correlation functions. This obstruction appears to come from torsion in the homology of the target space (which is seen by deforming the theory by an irrelevant operator). We discuss the link between this phenomenon and orbifolds with discrete torsion as studied by Vafa and Witten.Supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9400873.     

String orbifolds and quotient stacks

In this note we observe that, contrary to the usual lore, string orbifolds do not describe strings on quotient spaces, but rather seem to describe strings on objects called quotient stacks, a result that follows from simply unraveling definitions, and is further justified by a number of results. Quotient stacks are very closely related to quotient spaces; for example, when the orbifold group acts freely, the quotient space and the quotient stack are homeomorphic. We explain how sigma models on quotient stacks naturally have twisted sectors, and why a sigma model on a quotient stack would be a nonsingular CFT even when the associated quotient space is singular. We also show how to understand twist fields in this language, and outline the derivation of the orbifold Euler characteristic purely in terms of stacks. We also outline why there is a sense in which one naturally finds B≠0 on exceptional divisors of resolutions. These insights are not limited to merely understanding existing string orbifolds: we also point out how this technology enables us to understand orbifolds in M-theory, as well as how this means that string orbifolds provide the first example of an entirely new class of string compactifications. As quotient stacks are not a staple of the physics literature, we include a lengthy tutorial on quotient stacks, describing how one can perform differential geometry on stacks.     

RCFT with defects: Factorization and fundamental world sheets

It is known that for any full rational conformal field theory, the correlation functions that are obtained by the TFT construction satisfy all locality, modular invariance and factorization conditions, and that there is a small set of fundamental correlators to which all others are related via factorization – provided that the world sheets considered do not contain any non-trivial defect lines. In this paper we generalize both results to oriented world sheets with an arbitrary network of topological defect lines.     

Lagrangian Floer Superpotentials and Crepant Resolutions for Toric Orbifolds

We investigate the relationship between the Lagrangian Floer superpotentials for a toric orbifold and its toric crepant resolutions. More specifically, we study an open string version of the crepant resolution conjecture (CRC) which states that the Lagrangian Floer superpotential of a Gorenstein toric orbifold ${\mathcal{X}}$ and that of its toric crepant resolution Y coincide after analytic continuation of quantum parameters and a change of variables. Relating this conjecture with the closed CRC, we find that the change of variable formula which appears in closed CRC can be explained by relations between open (orbifold) Gromov-Witten invariants. We also discover a geometric explanation (in terms of virtual counting of stable orbi-discs) for the specialization of quantum parameters to roots of unity which appears in Ruan’s original CRC (Gromov-Witten theory of spin curves and orbifolds, contemp math, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, pp 117–126, 2006). We prove the open CRC for the weighted projective spaces ${\mathcal{X} = \mathbb{P}(1,\ldots,1, n)}$ using an equality between open and closed orbifold Gromov-Witten invariants. Along the way, we also prove an open mirror theorem for these toric orbifolds.