Generalized parafermions of orthogonal type

Abstract

There is an embedding of affine vertex algebras $V^k(\mathfrak{gl}_n) \hookrightarrow V^k(\mathfrak{sl}_{n+1})$, and the coset $\mathcal{C}^k(n) = \text{Com}(V^k(\mathfrak{gl}_n), V^k(\mathfrak{sl}_{n+1}))$ is a natural generalization of the parafermion algebra of $\mathfrak{sl}_2$. It was called the algebra of generalized parafermions by the third author and was shown to arise as a one-parameter quotient of the universal two-parameter $\mathcal{W}_{\infty}$-algebra of type $\mathcal{W}(2,3,\dots)$. In this paper, we consider an analogous structure of orthogonal type, namely $\mathcal{D}^k(n) = \text{Com}(V^k(\mathfrak{so}_{2n}), V^k(\mathfrak{so}_{2n+1}))^{\mathbb{Z}_2}$. We realize this algebra as a one-parameter quotient of the two-parameter even spin $\mathcal{W}_{\infty}$-algebra of type $\mathcal{W}(2,4,\dots)$, and we classify all coincidences between its simple quotient $\mathcal{D}_k(n)$ and the algebras $\mathcal{W}_{\ell}(\mathfrak{so}_{2m+1})$ and $\mathcal{W}_{\ell}(\mathfrak{so}_{2m})^{\mathbb{Z}_2}$. As a corollary, we show that for the admissible levels $k = -(2n-2) + \frac{1}{2} (2 n + 2 m -1)$ for $\widehat{\mathfrak{so}}_{2n}$ the simple affine algebra $L_k(\mathfrak{so}_{2n})$ embeds in $L_k(\mathfrak{so}_{2n+1})$, and the coset is strongly rational. As a consequence, the category of ordinary modules of $L_k(\mathfrak{so}_{2n+1})$ at such a level is a braided fusion category.