2.4 Example: Toroidal models [03QB]
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2.4 Example: Toroidal models
Non-supersymmetric toroidal model is described by the so-called Narain lattice, endowed with some additional data. More precisely, let us fix the central charge which is a positive integer number. What physicists call the Narain lattice is a unique unimodular lattice of rank and the signature . It can be described as equipped with the quadratic form . The moduli space of toroidal CFTs is
Equivalently, it is a quotient of the open part of the Grassmannian by the action of . Let be the orthogonal complement to . Then every vector of can be uniquely written as , where . For the corresponding CFT one has
Let us try to compactify the moduli space . Suppose that we have a one-parameter family of toroidal theories such that approaches zero. Then for corresponding vectors in one gets . It implies that . It is easy to see that one can add vectors satisfying these conditions. Thus one gets a (part of) lattice of the rank less or equal than . In the case of βmaximalβ simple collapse the rank will be equal to . One can see that the corresponding points of the boundary give rise to the following data: , where is a flat -dimensional torus, and is the constant map form to the trivial theory point in the moduli space of CFTs. These data in turn give rise to a toroidal CFT, which can be realized as a sigma model with the target space and given B-field . The residual bundle of CFTs on is trivial.
Let us consider a -parameter family of CFTs defined by the family , where . There are two degenerations of this family, which define two points of the boundary . As , we get a toroidal CFT defined by . As we get , where is the dual flat torus.
There might be further degenerations of the lattice. Thus one obtains a stratification of the compactified moduli space of lattices (and hence CFTs). Points of the compactification are described by flags of vector spaces . In addition one has a lattice , considered up to a scalar factor. These data give rise to a tower of torus bundles over tori with fibers . If , then one has also a map from the total space of the last torus bundle to the point in the moduli space of toroidal theories of smaller central charge: , .