Twisted chiral algebras of class $\mathcal{S}$ and mixed Feigin-Frenkel gluing

Abstract

The correspondence between four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal field theories and vertex operator algebras, when applied to theories of class $\mathcal{S}$, leads to a rich family of VOAs that have been given the monicker chiral algebras of class $\mathcal{S}$. A remarkably uniform construction of these vertex operator algebras has been put forward by Tomoyuki Arakawa in arXiv:1811.01577. The construction of arXiv:1811.01577 takes as input a choice of simple Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$, and applies equally well regardless of whether $\mathfrak{g}$ is simply laced or not. In the non-simply laced case, however, the resulting VOAs do not correspond in any clear way to known four-dimensional theories. On the other hand, the standard realisation of class $\mathcal S$ theories involving non-simply laced symmetry algebras requires the inclusion of outer automorphism twist lines, and this requires a further development of the approach of arXiv:1811.01577. In this paper, we give an account of those further developments and propose definitions of most chiral algebras of class $\mathcal S$ with outer automorphism twist lines. We show that our definition passes some consistency checks and point out some important open problems.