Precise constants in bosonization formulas on Riemann surfaces. I (Q2517936)

The bosonization formulas on Riemann surfaces relate zeta-regularized determinants of Laplace operators acting on sections of line bundles and on scalars. They play an important role in conformal field theory and perturbative string theory. Proofs of these identities in the mathematical literature generally proceed by computing either first or second variations of certain combinations of Green's and theta functions with respect to the Riemann moduli. As a consequence, all current formulations leave undetermined constants of integration, depending only on the genus and spin, which must be evaluated by other means. There has been renewed interest recently in the precise values of these constants [cf. \textit{E. D'Hoker, M. Gutperle} and \textit{D. H. Phong}, Nucl. Phys., B 722, No. 1--2, 81--118 (2005; Zbl 1128.81317)]. The author gives a rigorous proof of the result for the constants \(c_g\) associated to genus \(=g\) and spin \(=1\) in [\textit{J. A. Wentworth}, Math. Phys. 32, No. 7, 1767--1773 (1991; Zbl 0737.58053)] and defines \(c_g\) in terms of the relationship between Faltings' delta invariant \(\delta(M)\) of a compact Riemann surface \(M\) of genus \(g\geq 1\) and the determinant of the Laplace operator on functions with respect to the Arakelov metric \[ \begin{aligned} c_g = \delta(M) + 6 \log \frac{ \text{det}^{\prime} \Delta_{(M, \text{Arak.})}}{\text{area}(M, \text{Arak.})}. \end{aligned}\tag{1} \] The spin-1 bosonization formula states that \[ \begin{aligned} \left(\frac{\text{det}^{\prime} \Delta_{(M, \text{Arak.})}}{ \text{area}(M, \text{Arak.}) \text{det} (\text{Im} \Omega) }\right)^{\frac{3}{4}} = e^{\frac{c_g}{8}} \frac{||\theta||(p_1 + \cdots + p_g -z -\Delta ) \prod_{i<j} G(p_i , p_j )}{||\text{det} \omega_i (p_j) || \prod_{i=1}^g G(p_i , z)} , \end{aligned} \] where \(\theta\) is the theta function associated to \(M\), \(\Delta\) is the Riemann divisor, \(\omega_i\) is a basis of abelian differentials, \(\Omega\) is the period matrix, \(G(z, w)\) is the Arakelov-Green function and \(\{p_i, z\} \subset M\) are generic points. The author proves that the value of \(c_g\) in (1) is \[ \begin{aligned} c_g = & (1-g)c_0 + g c_1 , \\ c_1 = & -8 \log 2\pi , \\ c_0 = & -24 \zeta^{\prime}(-1) + 1 -6 \log 2\pi - 2 \log 2 , \end{aligned} \] where \(\zeta(s)\) is the Riemann zeta function.