Topological modular forms and conformal nets

MaRDI QIDQ3118418zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Christopher L. Douglas, André Henriques

Publication date 2 March 2012

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1103.4187

zbMATH Keywords

conformal netelliptic cohomologyfree fermiontopological modular form

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Elliptic cohomology (55N34) Axiomatic quantum field theory; operator algebras (81T05) Two-dimensional field theories, conformal field theories, etc. in quantum mechanics (81T40)

Abstract: We describe the role conformal nets, a mathematical model for conformal field theory, could play in a geometric definition of the generalized cohomology theory TMF of topological modular forms. Inspired by work of Segal and Stolz-Teichner, we speculate that bundles of boundary conditions for the net of free fermions will be the basic underlying objects representing TMF-cohomology classes. String structures, which are the fundamental orientations for TMF-cohomology, can be encoded by defects between free fermions, and we construct the bundle of fermionic boundary conditions for the TMF-Euler class of a string vector bundle. We conjecture that the free fermion net exhibits an algebraic periodicity corresponding to the 576-fold cohomological periodicity of TMF; using a homotopy-theoretic invariant of invertible conformal nets, we establish a lower bound of 24 on this periodicity of the free fermions.

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Cited in

(9)

• The moonshine anomaly
• Conformal field theory and elliptic cohomology
• Topological modular forms and the absence of a heterotic global anomaly
• Holomorphic CFTs and topological modular forms
• Obstruction theory and the level n elliptic genus
• The Clifford algebra bundle on loop space
• On the high-dimensional geography problem
• Flat principal 2-group bundles and flat string structures
• Equivariant elliptic cohomology and mapping stacks

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