Journal of High Energy Physics (May 2022)

Adding flavor to the Narain ensemble

  • Shouvik Datta,
  • Sarthak Duary,
  • Per Kraus,
  • Pronobesh Maity,
  • Alexander Maloney

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2022)090
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2022, no. 5
pp. 1 – 29

Abstract

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Abstract We revisit the proposal that the ensemble average over free boson CFTs in two dimensions — parameterized by Narain’s moduli space — is dual to an exotic theory of gravity in three dimensions dubbed U(1) gravity. We consider flavored partition functions, where the usual genus g partition function is weighted by Wilson lines coupled to the conserved U(1) currents of these theories. These flavored partition functions obey a heat equation which relates deformations of the Riemann surface moduli to those of the chemical potentials which measure these U(1) charges. This allows us to derive a Siegel-Weil formula which computes the average of these flavored partition functions. The result takes the form of a “sum over geometries”, albeit with modifications relative to the unflavored case.

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