On SLE martingales in boundary WZW models

TL;DR

This paper establishes conditions under which boundary correlation functions in boundary WZW models are SLE martingales, linking boundary field properties to specific SLE parameters, with explicit results for SU(2) and SU(n) cases.

Contribution

It provides a rigorous connection between boundary WZW model correlators and SLE martingales, identifying exact conditions and parameters for different Lie groups and representations.

Findings

Boundary correlators are SLE martingales if the boundary field has spin 1/2 in SU(2).

For SU(n) at level 1, boundary one-point correlators are SLE(kappa)-martingales with specific kappa values.

Finite boundary field separation leads to SLE(kappa,rho) evolution with rho related to kappa.

Abstract

We consider the boundary WZW model on a half-plane with a cut growing according to the Schramm-Loewner stochastic evolution and the boundary fields inserted at the tip of the cut and at infinity. We study necessary and sufficient conditions for boundary correlation functions to be SLE martingales. Necessary conditions come from the requirement for the boundary field at the tip of the cut to have a depth two null vector. Sufficient conditions are established using Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations for boundary correlators. Combining these two approaches, we show that in the case of G=SU(2) the boundary correlator is an SLE martingale if and only if the boundary field carries spin 1/2. In the case of G=SU(n) and k=1, there are several situations when boundary one-point correlators are SLE(kappa)-martingales. If the boundary field is labelled by the defining n-dimensional representation of SU(n), we obtain kappa=2. For n even, by choosing the boundary field labelled by the (unique) self-adjoint fundamental representation, we get kappa=8/(n+2). We also study the situation when the distance between the two boundary fields is finite, and we show that in this case the SLE(kappa) evolution is replaced by SLE(kappa,rho) with rho=kappa-6.