On the timelike Liouville three-point function

Abstract

In a recent paper, D. Harlow, J. Maltz, and E. Witten showed that a particular proposal for the timelike Liouville three-point function, originally due to Al. Zamolodchikov and to I. Kostov and V. Petkova, can actually be computed by the original Liouville path integral evaluated on a new integration cycle. Here, we discuss a Coulomb gas computation of the timelike three-point function and show that an analytic extension of the Selberg type integral formulas involved reproduces the same expression, including the adequate normalization. A notable difference with the spacelike calculation is pointed out.