Kostant's pair of Lie type and conformal embeddings

Abstract

We deal with some aspects of the theory of conformal embeddings of affine vertex algebras, providing a new proof of the Symmetric Space Theorem and a criterion for conformal embeddings of equal rank subalgebras. We finally study some examples of embeddings at the critical level. We prove a criterion for embeddings at the critical level which enables us to prove equality of certain central elements.