Liouville Brownian motion at criticality (Q494704)

In physics, toy models have a long tradition. They are used when the realistic problem at hand is too difficult to solve and a toy model seems to offer some glimpses of the reality. This happened to the non-perturbative solutions in quantum field theory and to the confinement problem in quantum chromodynamics which led physicists to throw off the burden of the \(3+1\) (Minkowski) spacetime and work out consistent 2-dimensional (Euclidean) models. Another hard to be solved fundamental problem is the quantization of general relativity. Here again, 2-dimensional models like the Liouville quantum field theory offer a playground with its many facets supposedly similar to the realistic theory. It is fair to say that in spite of decades of research, the toy models have not yet substantially contributed to a deeper understanding of their 4-dimensional brothers. On the other hand, they remain a fruitful interface between mathematics and physics and, at least, conceptually, they demonstrate how a physical theory could be treated and benefit from the full mathematical rigor. The paper falls into this category of mathematical physics in its 2-dimensional version of the Liouville quantum field theory. The paper circles around strong Markov processes on the Liouville measure, the Louville semi-group, Green function and heat kernel. After introducing the subject through motivating physical examples, of what use the model under discussion might be (apart from 2-dimensional quantum gravity, it touches subjects like 2-dimensional string theory and Potts models), the authors turn to the set up of their exposition explaining, among other, the ``weak'' aspects of the theory. The latter are problems related to the definition of the distance (with respect to the metric), the heat kernel representation and the proper regularization of the metric and volume element in the Riemannian geometry with its proper limit. The same (regularization) is done for the Brownian motion associated with the metric. The ambiguities and different suggestions in the literature to overcome them show that the reality of a 2-dimensional toy model is not always paradisic. With subsequent sections, the authors start to formulate their mathematical exposition with theorems and proofs. First, they discuss the convergence of the Liouville Brownian motion. This is followed by viewing this Brownian motion as a Markov process in the critical case which is a choice of the parameter appearing in the metric. A Green function at criticality is also constructed. Finally, a note is devoted to the possibility to construct the Liouville Brownian motion on other domains like \(S^2\). The paper is mathematically sound and pleasant to read. The text is always motivating and elegant.