Natural construction of ten Borcherds-Kac-Moody algebras associated with elements in \(M_{23}\) (Q2662954)

Denominator identities are combinatorial expressions, typically relating a sum to a product, that arise in the character theory of certain classes of Lie algebras. The archetypal example is Jacobi's triple product identity, which may be viewed as a consequence of evaluating the Weyl-Kac character formula for the trivial representation of the affine Kac-Moody algebra \(\widehat{\mathfrak{sl}}_2\). Borcherds-Kac-Moody (BKM) algebras are generalised Kac-Moody algebras that were famously invoked by Borcherds in his study of the monstrous moonshine conjectures. They also admit denominator identities. There are not many well understood BKM algebras. This paper promises to significantly improve the understanding of ten examples, all related to the fake monster Lie algebra, by providing an alternative construction to the standard generators-relations definition. In this case, the alternative construction is a variant of the well known no-ghost theorem of string theory in which the BRST cohomology of a given vertex operator algebra (VOA) naturally results in a Lie algebra. This type of construction is already known for some examples. The paper is well written but unavoidably technical. It first has to rigorously construct ten VOAs as simple current extensions of appropriate orbifolds of the lattice VOA associated to the Leech lattice. This is straightforward in principle, using well established techniques, but quite intricate. Similarly, the construction of the BRST differential and the computation of its cohomology are standard techniques, but require significant effort in these examples. The main difficulty is to actually identify these cohomologies with the desired BKM algebras and this is achieved by studying in detail the number-theoretic properties of the characters of the corresponding orbifold VOA.