Polyakov's formulation of 2d bosonic string theory

DOI10.1007/S10240-019-00109-6MaRDI QIDQ6276027arXivFDO

Authors Colin Guillarmou, Rémi Rhodes, Vincent Vargas

Publication date 28 July 2016

Published in arXiv

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/S10240-019-00109-6

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Fine and coarse moduli spaces (14D22) Moduli of Riemann surfaces, Teichmüller theory (complex-analytic aspects in several variables) (32G15) Quantum field theory on curved space or space-time backgrounds (81T20) String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory (81T30) Two-dimensional field theories, conformal field theories, etc. in quantum mechanics (81T40) Gravitational interaction in quantum theory (81V17) Methods of quantum field theory in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C47)

arXiv classification

math-phmath.DGmath.MPmath.PR

Abstract: Using probabilistic methods, we first define Liouville quantum field theory on Riemann surfaces of genus $mathbfggeq2$ and show that it is a conformal field theory. We use the partition function of Liouville quantum field theory to give a mathematical sense to Polyakov's partition function of noncritical bosonic string theory cite{Pol} (also called $2d$ bosonic string theory) and to Liouville quantum gravity. Then we show the convergence of Polyakov's partition function over the moduli space of Riemann surfaces in genus $mathbfggeq2$ in the case of $Dleq1$ boson. This is done by performing a careful analysis of the behaviour of the partition function at the boundary of moduli space. An essential feature of our approach is that it is probabilistic and non perturbative. The interest of our result is twofold. First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first mathematical result about convergence of string theories. Second, our construction describes conjecturally the scaling limit of higher genus random planar maps weighted by Conformal Field Theories: we make precise conjectures about this statement at the end of the paper.

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