Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. PREFACE This PhD thesis in Mathematical Physics contains both a general overview and some original research results about low dimensional conformal Quantum Field Theory (QFT). The closer area of the work is chiral conformal QFT in the so-called algebraic setting; i.e. the study of Möbius covariant and diffeomorphism (or, as it is sometimes call...

A two-dimensional (2D) scalar-tensor gravity theory is used to describe the near-horizon nearextremal behavior of black 3-branes solutions of type IIB string theory. The asymptotic symmetry group of the 2D, asymptotically anti de Sitter (AdS) metric, is generated by a Virasoro algebra. The (non-constant) configuration of the 2D scalar field, which parametrizes the volume of the 3-brane, breaks ...

We point out that the flavor problem in theories with dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking can be effectively decoupled if the physics above the TeV scale is strongly conformal, and the electroweak order parameter has a scaling dimension d = 1+ ǫ with ǫ ≃ 1/few. There are many restrictions on small values of ǫ: for ǫ ≪ 1, electroweak symmetry breaking requires a finetuning similar to that of...

We first give a complete, albeit brief, review of the discovery of mirror symmetry in N = 2 string/conformal field theory. In particular, we describe the naturality arguments which led to the initial mirror symmetry conjectures and the subsequent work which established the existence of mirror symmetry through direct construction. We then review a number of striking consequences of mirror symmet...

Using the renormalization group approach, the Coulomb gas and the coset techniques, the effect of slightly relevant perturbations is studied for the second parafermionic field theory with the symmetry Z5. New fixed points are found and classified. ∗ Unité Mixte de Recherche UMR 7589 While the first series of parafermionic conformal field theories [1] is well studied and applied in various domai...

The Noether currents associated with the non-linearly realized super-Poincaré symmetries of the Green-Schwarz (Nambu-Goto-Akulov-Volkov) action for a non-BPS p=2 brane embedded in a N=1, D=4 target superspace are constructed. The R symmetry current, the supersymmetry currents, the energy-momentum tensor and the scalar central charge current are shown to be components of a world volume supercurr...

The Noether currents associated with the non-linearly realized super-Poincaré symmetries of the Green-Schwarz (Nambu-Goto-Akulov-Volkov) action for a non-BPS p=2 brane embedded in a N=1, D=4 target superspace are constructed. The R symmetry current, the supersymmetry currents, the energy-momentum tensor and the scalar central charge current are shown to be components of a world volume supercurr...

We consider the Lagrangian particle model introduced in [1] for zero mass but nonvanishing second central charge of the planar Galilei group. Extended by a magnetic vortex or a Coulomb potential the model exibits conformal symmetry. In the former case we observe an additional SO(2, 1) hidden symmetry. By either a canonical transformation with constraints or by freezing scale and special conform...

The Noether currents associated with the non-linearly realized super-Poincaré symmetries of the Green-Schwarz (Nambu-Goto-Akulov-Volkov) action for a non-BPS p=2 brane embedded in a N=1, D=4 target superspace are constructed. The R symmetry current, the supersymmetry currents, the energy-momentum tensor and the scalar central charge current are shown to be components of a world volume supercurr...