What is the Jacobian of a Riemann surface with boundary?

Abstract

We define the Jacobian of a Riemann surface with analytically parametrized boundary components. These Jacobians belong to a moduli space of ``open abelian varieties'' which satisfies gluing axioms similar to those of Riemann surfaces, and therefore allows a notion of ``conformal field theory'' to be defined on this space. We further prove that chiral conformal field theories corresponding to even lattices factor through this moduli space of open abelian varieties.