Joint Theory Seminar: Yuri Makeenko

Title: Four-derivative Liouville theory as a Web of minimal models

Contents:

1) From the Nambu-Goto string to emergent Liouville theory
2) Exact solution for the four-derivative Liouville action by the method of singular products
3) Relation to the minimal models 

Abstract: I show how the higher-derivative Liouville action emerges from the Nambu-Goto string after the path-integration over all fields but the metric tensor by making use of the DeWitt-Seeley expansion. I consider the case of the usual Liouville action plus four-derivative terms which possesses conformal invariance in spite of they are proportional to a dimensionfull ultraviolet cutoff $a^2$. I exactly solve this four-derivative action by the method of singular products which accounts for tremendous cancellations in perturbation theory with the result arising from doing uncertainties like $a^2 \times 1/a^2$. The solution beautifully recovers the Web of minimal models generalizing KPZ.

Student session: 13:10