Abstract
Two-dimensional chiral fermions and bosons, more generally conformal blocks of two-dimensional conformal field theories, exhibit Weyl-, Lorentz- and mixed Lorentz-Weyl anomalies. A novel way of computing these anomalies for a system of chiral bosons of arbitrary conformal spinj is sketched. It is shown that the Lorentz- and mixed Lorentz-Weyl anomalies of these theories can be cancelled by the anomalies of a three-dimensional classical Chern-Simons action for the spin connection, expressed in terms of the dreibein field. Some tentative applications of this result to string theory are indicated.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Wen, X.G.: Phys. Rev. B40, 7387 (1989); Phys. Rev. B43, 11025 (1991)
Fröhlich, J., Studer, U.M.: Incompressible quantum fluids, gauge invariance and current algebra. To appear in the proceedings of Cargèse School of Physics, 1991. Editors G. 't Hooft et al.
Polyakov, A.M.: Mod. Phys. Lett.A2, 899 (1987); Khnizhnik, V.G., Polyakov, A.M., Zamolodchikov, A.A.: Mod. Phys. Lett.A3, 819 (1988)
David, F.: Mod. Phys. Lett.A3, 1651 (1988); Distler, J., Kawai, H.: Phys. Lett.B 321, 509 (1989)
Chamseddine, A.H.: Phys. Lett.B256, 379 (1991)
Alvarez-Gaumé, L., Witten, E.: Nucl. Phys.B234, 269 (1983)
Bardeen W.A., Zumino, B.: Nucl. Phys.B244, 421 (1984); Alvarez-Gaumé, L., Ginsparg, P.: Ann. Phys. (N.Y.)161, 423 (1985)
Leutwyler, H.: Phys. Lett.153B, 65 (1985)
Jackiw, R.: In Current Algebras and Anomalies. Treimann S.B., Jackiw, R., Zumino, B., Witten E.: (eds.) Singapore: World Scientific 1985, and references therein
Di Vecchia, P., Durhuus, B., Petersen, J.L.: Phys. Lett.144B, 245 (1989)
Alvarez-Gaumé, L., Bost, J.-B., Moore, G., Nelson,P. Vafa, C.: Phys. Lett.B 178, 105 (1986); Gawędzki, K.: In Non-perturbative Quantum Field Theory. p. 101, editors G 't Hooft et al, New York: Plenum Press 1988
Dereli, T., Mukherjee, M., Tucker, R.W.: Class. Quant. Grav.5, L 21 (1988)
Witten, E.: Nucl. Phys.B.311, 96 (1988);B 323, 113 (1989)
Bar-Natan, D., Witten, E.:Commun Math. Phys.141, 423 (1991)
Witten, E.: Commun Math. Phys.121, 351 (1989)
Mavromatos, N., Miramontes, J.: Mod. Phys. Lett.A4, 1847 (1989)
Moore, G., Seiberg, N.: Phys. Lett.220B, 422 (1989); Fröhlich, J.,King, C.: Commun. Math. Phys.126, 167 (1989)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Communicated by K. Gawedzki
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chamseddine, A.H., Fröhlich, J. Two-dimensional Lorentz-Weyl anomaly and gravitational Chern-Simons theory. Commun.Math. Phys. 147, 549–562 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02097242
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02097242