The modular properties of sl (2) torus 1-point functions

Krauel, Matthew, Shafiq, Jamal and Wood, Simon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8257-0378 2026. The modular properties of sl (2) torus 1-point functions. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 10.1090/tran/9722

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Abstract

Conformal field theory and its axiomatisation in terms of vertex operator algebras or chiral algebras are most commonly considered on the Riemann sphere. However, an important constraint in physics and an interesting source of mathematics is the fact that conformal field theories are expected to be well defined on any Riemann surface. To this end, a thorough understanding of chiral torus -point functions, ideally including explicit formulae, is a prerequisite for a detailed understanding of higher genera. These are distinguished from characters or vacuum torus -point functions because the insertion point is explicitly allowed to be labelled by any module over the vertex operator algebra rather than just the vertex operator algebra itself. Compellingly, chiral torus -point functions exhibit interesting modular properties, which we explore here in the example of the simple affine vertex operator algebras at non-negative integral levels. We determine the dimension of the space spanned by such functions, choose a natural basis to construct vector-valued modular forms and describe the congruence properties of these forms. In particular, we find explicit generators for the spaces of all vector-valued modular forms of dimension at most three, when the insertion comes from a simple module other than the vertex operator algebra. Finally, we use the fact that categories of modules over rational vertex operator algebras are modular tensor categories to give explicit formulae for the action of the modular group on chiral torus -point functions entirely in terms of categorical data. The usual modular and matrices of characters are known not to be complete invariants of modular tensor categories, so these generalised modular data are good candidates for more fine-grained invariants.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Mathematics
Additional Information:	RRS policy applied
Publisher:	American Mathematical Society
ISSN:	1088-6850
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	15 July 2026
Last Modified:	20 Jul 2026 10:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/188216

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