Search

Operators with integer scaling dimensions in even-dimensional conformal field theories exhibit well-known type-B Weyl anomalies. In general, these anomalies depend non-trivially on exactly marginal couplings. We study the corresponding fully covariantised anomaly functional on conformal manifolds in several examples. We show that a natural consequence of the Wess-Zumino consistency condition is that the anomalies are covariantly constant with respect to the exactly marginal couplings. The argument is general and applies even when the conformal symmetry is spontaneously broken on moduli spaces of vacua., 30 pages; v2: references added

Starting from the recent action proposed by Sen [1,2], we evaluate the partition function of the compact chiral boson on a two-dimensional torus using a path-integral formulation. Crucially, we use a Wick-rotation procedure obtained from a complex deformation of the physical spacetime metric. This directly reproduces the expected result including general characteristics for the theta functions. We also present results for the chiral 2-form potential in six dimensions which can be readily extended to 4k+2 dimensions., 40 pages; v2: minor corrections; v3: references added and presentation streamlined

We brute-force evaluate the vacuum character for N=2 vertex operator algebras labeled by crystallographic complex reflection groups G(k,1,1)=Zk, k=3, 4, 6, and G(3,1,2). For Z3,4 and G(3,1,2) these vacuum characters have been conjectured to respectively reproduce the Macdonald limit of the superconformal index for rank one and rank two S-fold N=3 theories in four dimensions. For the Z3 case, and in the limit where the Macdonald index reduces to the Schur index, we find agreement with predictions from the literature.

We explore various geometrical aspects of an action for six-dimensional chiral 2-forms based on the formalism of 1903.12196. We elucidate the coupling to general backgrounds and construct the full supersymmetric completion to an abelian (2,0) superconformal lagrangian including matter. We investigate the non-standard diffeomorphism properties of the fields and their relation to the hamiltonian formulation. We also test the action by considering compactifications on a circle, K3 and a Riemann surface. The results are consistent with expectations for an action describing the low-energy physics of an M5-brane in M-theory., Comment: 37 pages; v2: typos corrected and references added