Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1707.08388

The Moonshine Anomaly

Theo Johnson-Freyd
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The anomaly for the Monster group $\mathbb{M}$ acting on its natural (aka moonshine) representation $V^\natural$ is a particular cohomology class $\omega^\natural \in \mathrm{H}^3(\mathbb{M},\mathrm{U}(1))$ that arises as a conformal field theoretic generalization of the second Chern class of a representation. This paper shows that $\omega^\natural$ has order exactly $24$ and is not a Chern class. In order to perform this computation, this paper introduces a finite-group version of T-duality, which is used to relate $\omega^\natural$ to the anomaly for the Leech lattice CFT.

Explore related subjects

math.QAmath-phmath.GRmath.MP

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Theo Johnson-Freyd. 2017-07-26. The Moonshine Anomaly. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00220-019-03300-2

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

On Diagrammatic Categorification of Verma Modules I: Braiding

In this paper, we study the extensions of KLRW algebras to tensor products of Verma module representations of $\mathfrak{sl}_2$. Our motivation is to construct a theory of Khovanov homology for knot complements in $S^3$ (and which also categorifies the Gukov-Manolescu two-variable series for knot complements), which will be done in the second part of this work. We construct the categorification of R-matrices for Verma modules as functors given by derived tensor products with diagrammatic bimodules and explicitly compute their projective resolutions. We also prove these braiding functors induce an action of the braid group on the relevant categories. Then, we describe how to incorporate strands in finite-dimensional representations of $\mathfrak{sl}_2$, thereby establishing functors that serve as the Khovanov homology on a braid complement. In the case of the unknot, this gives knot homologies in $S^1\times D^2$, which we compare to Annular Khovanov Homology through several examples and show they are very closely related, conjecturing they are of the same dimension. We conclude with a proposal for the categorification of the cups and caps of Verma module colored strands, which we build upon in the next paper.

math.QA↗
arXiv2026

Some finite dimensional representations of shifted quantum affine algebras of type A

In this paper, we study finite dimensional representations of shifted quantum affine algebras of type A. We give an explicit description of the tensor product of simple evaluation modules of the quantum loop algebra and a one-dimensional representation of the shifted quantum affine algebra under the separation condition. As a consequence, we give the q-characters of some finite dimensional simple modules of the shifted quantum affine algebra.

math.QA↗