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JOURNALS // Trudy Moskovskogo Matematicheskogo Obshchestva // Archive

Tr. Mosk. Mat. Obs., 2017 Volume 78, Issue 1, Pages 17–88 (Mi mmo593)

This article is cited in 3 papers

Representations of superconformal algebras and mock theta functions

V. G. Kaca, M. Wakimotob

a Department of Mathematics, M.I.T, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
b 12–4 Karato-Rokkoudai, Kita-ku, Kobe 651–1334, Japan

Abstract: It is well known that the normalized characters of integrable highest weight modules of given level over an affine Lie algebra $\hat{\mathfrak{g}}$ span an $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$–invariant space. This result extends to admissible $\hat{\mathfrak{g}}$–modules, where $\mathfrak{g}$ is a simple Lie algebra or $\mathrm{osp}_{1|n}$. Applying the quantum Hamiltonian reduction (QHR) to admissible $\hat{\mathfrak{g}}$–modules when $\mathfrak{g} =s\ell_2$ (resp. $=\mathrm{osp}_{1|2}$) one obtains minimal series modules over the Virasoro (resp. $N=1$ superconformal algebras), which form modular invariant families.
Another instance of modular invariance occurs for boundary level admissible modules, including when $\mathfrak{g}$ is a basic Lie superalgebra. For example, if $\mathfrak{g}=s\ell_{2|1}$ (resp. $=\mathrm{osp}_{3|2}$), we thus obtain modular invariant families of $\hat{\mathfrak{g}}$–modules, whose QHR produces the minimal series modules for the $N=2$ superconformal algebras (resp. a modular invariant family of $N=3$ superconformal algebra modules).
However, in the case when $\mathfrak{g}$ is a basic Lie superalgebra different from a simple Lie algebra or $\mathrm{osp}_{1|n}$, modular invariance of normalized supercharacters of admissible $\hat{\mathfrak{g}}$–modules holds outside of boundary levels only after their modification in the spirit of Zwegers' modification of mock theta functions. Applying the QHR, we obtain families of representations of $N=2,3,4$ and big $N=4$ superconformal algebras, whose modified (super)characters span an $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$–invariant space.

Key words and phrases: basic Lie superalgebra, affine Lie superalgebra, superconformal algebra, integrable and admissible representations of affine Lie superalgebras, quantum Hamiltonian reduction, theta function, mock theta function and its modification, modular invariant family of characters.

UDC: 512.554.32, 512.554.38, 517.986.5, 515.178.1, 517.547.582

MSC: 17B67, 17B10, 17B68, 11F50, 33E05

Received: 12.01.2017
Revised: 01.04.2017

Language: English


 English version:
Transactions of the Moscow Mathematical Society, 2017, 78, 9–74

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© Steklov Math. Inst. of RAS, 2024