String Theory Journal Club

Superconformal blocks from harmonic analysis

by Ilija Buric (DESY)

Europe/Berlin
Description
Conformal blocks are an important ingredient in a conformal field theory. They provide a basis for expansion of correlation functions and serve as a starting point in the conformal bootstrap program. Contrary to the ordinary conformal field theory, not much is known about blocks in superconformal theories. In this talk, I will explain how to construct the blocks as functions on the superconformal group which obey certain covariance properties. For a large class of superconformal algebras, termed type I, the construction casts superconformal blocks as eigenfunctions of a Calogero-Sutherland-Moser quantum mechanical problem, perturbed by a simple nilpotent potential term. I will finish by listing some solved and unsolved problems amenable to these methods. The talk is based on the work with Volker Schomerus and Zhenya Sobko https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.04852