Conformal Field Theory II: Lattices and Kač-Moody Algebras

Abstract

In the previous chapter we have learned that in toroidal compactifications of the bosonic string there are, in addition to the Kaluza-Klein gauge bosons familiar from field theory, further massless vectors of purely stringy origin. However, we did not show that these massless vectors are gauge bosons of a non-Abelian gauge group G, transforming in the adjoint representation. The necessary mathematical tool to do this is the theory of infinite dimensional (current) algebras, the so-called affine Kač-Moody algebras. They are the subject of this chapter for which we assume some familiarity with the structure of finite dimensional Lie algebras. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.