Rational conformal theories from Witten's knot approach: Constraints and their analysis (Q1814431)

The authors develop E. Witten's approach based on a connection between rational conformal field theories (RCFTs) and knot invariants (an RCFT may be characterized as a conformally invariant field theory whose physical Hilbert space splits into a finite sum of irreducible representations of a chiral algebra \({\mathcal A}={\mathcal A}_ L\otimes{\mathcal A}_ R\), where \({\mathcal A}_ L, {\mathcal A}_ R\) contain at least the identity operator and the left and right Virasoro algebras). The authors introduce the knot reduction machinery and key ideas necessary to do calculations in RCFTs. By studying the interplay between Riemann surface diffeomorphisms and the intertwining of \(N\) Wilson loops on the manifold \(S^ 2\times S^ 1\), a set of constraints on the operator content and scaling dimensions of RCFTs is obtained. It is shown that all constraints obtained for \(N>4\) follow from the \(N=4\) constraints. Two infinite classes of RCFTs, namely the \(SU(2)\) affine series and the discrete unitary series, are shown to be solutions of these constraints. E. Verlinde's theorem is used to find the fusion coefficients for both the affine and unitary discrete series.