Bosonic construction of vertex operator para-algebras from symplectic affine Kac-Moody algebras

Abstract

The representation theory of affine Kac-Moody Lie algebras has grown tremendously since their independent introduction by Robert V. Moody and Victor G. Kac in 1968. Inspired by mathematical structures found by theoretical physicists, and by the desire to understand the ``monstrous moonshine'' of the Monster group, the theory of vertex operator algebras (VOA's) was introduced by Borcherds, Frenkel, Lepowsky and Meurman. An important subject in this young field is the study of modules for VOA's and intertwining operators between modules. Feingold, Frenkel and Ries defined a structure, called a vertex operator para-algebra(VOPA), where a VOA, its modules and their intertwining operators are unified. In this work, for each $l\geq 1$, we begin with the bosonic construction (from a Weyl algebra) of four level $-\shf$ irreducible representations of the symplectic affine Kac-Moody Lie algebra $C_l^{(1)}$. The direct sum of two of these is given the structure of a VOA, and the direct sum of the other two is given the structure of a twisted VOA-module. In order to define intertwining operators so that the whole structure forms a VOPA, it is necessary to separate the four irreducible modules, taking one As the VOA and the others as modules for it. This work includes the bosonic analog of the fermionic construction of a vertex operator superalgebra from the four level 1 irreducible modules of type $D_l^{(1)}$ given by Feingold, Frenkel and Ries. While they only get a VOPA when $l = 4$ using classical triality, the techniques in this work apply to any $l\geq 1$.