Coadjoint Orbits and Conformal Field Theory

Abstract

This thesis describes a new approach to conformal field theory. This approach combines the method of coadjoint orbits with resolutions and chiral vertex operators to give a construction of the correlation functions of conformal field theories in terms of geometrically defined objects. Explicit formulae are given for representations of Virasoro and affine algebras in terms of a local gauge choice on the line bundle associated with geometric quantization of a given coadjoint orbit; these formulae define a new set of explicit bosonic realizations of these algebras. The coadjoint orbit realizations take the form of dual Verma modules, making it possible to avoid the technical difficulties associated with the two-sided resolutions which arise from Feigin-Fuchs and Wakimoto realizations. Formulae are given for screening and intertwining operators on the coadjoint orbit representations. Chiral vertex operators between Virasoro modules are constructed, and related directly to Virasoro algebra generators in certain cases. From the point of view taken in this thesis, vertex operators have a geometric interpretation as differential operators taking sections of one line bundle to sections of another. A suggestion is made that by connecting this description with recent work deriving field theory actions from coadjoint orbits, a deeper understanding of the geometry of conformal field theory might be achieved.