Chiral differential operators on the upper half plane and modular forms (Q822725)

Let \(\mathscr{D}^{\operatorname{ch}}(\mathbb{H})\) be the vertex algebra of chiral differential operators on \(\mathbb{H}\). Taking a finite index subgroup \(\Gamma\) of \(\operatorname{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})\), one can consider the fixed point vertex algebra \(\mathscr{D}^{\operatorname{ch}}(\mathbb{H})^\Gamma\). This paper considers the subspace \(\mathscr{D}^{\operatorname{ch}}(\mathbb{H}, \Gamma)\) of \(\mathscr{D}^{\operatorname{ch}}(\mathbb{H})^\Gamma\) consisting of elements which are holomorphic at the cusps. It is shown that \(\mathscr{D}^{\operatorname{ch}}(\mathbb{H}, \Gamma)\) is a vertex operator algebra of central charge \(2\) (see Propositions 2.6 and 5.1) and its character formula is found to equal \[ \sum_{m=0}^\infty \sum_{n=0}^\infty \operatorname{dim} M_{2m}(\Gamma) q^{2n+m} \prod_{i=1}^n \frac{1}{1-q^i} \prod_{j=1}^{m+n} \frac{1}{1-q^j}, \] where \(q=e^{2\pi i \tau}\) for \(\tau \in \mathbb{H}\) and \(M_{2m}(\Gamma)\) is the space of modular forms of weight \(2m\) on \(\Gamma\) (see Theorem 1.1). Throughout the paper, ways in which the structure of \(\mathscr{D}^{\operatorname{ch}}(\mathbb{H}, \Gamma)\) is related to modular forms of level \(\Gamma\) is highlighted and used. To arrive at the above results, the author introduces an \(\operatorname{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})\)-invariant filtration. Indeed, for partition pairs \((\lambda , \mu)\) a total order is described and a filtration \(\{V_{\lambda ,\mu}\}\) on \(\mathscr{D}^{\operatorname{ch}}(\mathbb{H})\) is considered, where \(V_{\lambda',\mu'}\subseteq V_{\lambda,\mu}\) whenever \((\lambda',\mu')<(\lambda ,\mu)\). Then subspaces \((V_{\lambda,\mu})^\Gamma_0 \subset V_{\lambda,\mu}\) consisting of \(\Gamma\)-invariant elements with additional cuspidal conditions are defined. Under certain conditions it is found that \( (V_{\lambda,\mu})^\Gamma_0 /(V_{\lambda,\mu})^\Gamma_0 \cong M_{2k}(\Gamma)\), where \(k=p(\mu)-p(\lambda)\) and \(p(\nu)\) denotes the number of terms in a partition \(\nu=(\nu_{(1)}, \dots ,\nu_{(p(\nu))})\). This result is also expressed as a short exact sequence (see Theorem 2.5). The author then notes that this allows the character formula above to be rewritten as \[ \sum_{n=0}^\infty \sum_{m=-\infty}^\infty c(m,n) \operatorname{dim} M_m(\Gamma) q^n, \] where \(c(m,n)\) is the number of partition pairs \((\lambda ,\mu)\) with \(2(p(\lambda)-p(\mu))=m\) and \(\lvert \lambda \rvert +\lvert \mu\rvert =n\), where \(\lvert \nu \rvert := \sum_{j=1}^{p(\nu)}\nu_j\). Finally, the paper also includes results and formula for the lifting of modular forms to a vertex subalgebra.