Harmonic analysis and conformal field theory

The operator product expansion of conformal field theory is analogous to the product of functions over a manifold in harmonic analysis. In particular, crossing symmetry is analogous to the associativity of the product of functions over the manifold. The bootstrap method from CFT can be used for studying a manifold's geometry, or conversely the calculation of integrals over some manifolds can help determine correlation functions in certain CFTs.

Assuming unitarity of a CFT and discreteness of the spectrum, numerical bootstrap methods can derive bounds on quantities such as conformal dimensions, using semidefinite programming.^[1] The same method can be applied to problems of spectral geometry that obey analogous assumptions.

Bounds on geometric data of closed Einstein manifolds can be derived.^[2]

Bounds on the eigenvalues of the Laplace-Beltrami operator can similarly be derived.^[3][4] In particular, a bound on the spectral gap of surfaces of genus 2 is nearly saturated by the Bolza surface.

In certain limits of two-dimensional CFTs, correlation functions reduce to integrals over finite-dimensional manifolds.

In the light asymptotic limit where the central charge is large and the conformal dimensions are constant, correlation functions of Liouville theory reduce to integrals of products of Laplacian eigenvectors over ${\displaystyle SL_{2}(\mathbb {C} )}$,^[5] or equivalently over ${\displaystyle H_{3}^{+}=SL_{2}(\mathbb {C} )/SU_{2}}$.^[6]

In the large level limit, correlation functions of the ${\displaystyle G}$-WZW model reduce to integrals of products of Laplacian eigenvectors over the group ${\displaystyle G}$. In the case ${\displaystyle G=SL_{2}(\mathbb {R} )}$, this can be used for determining the three-point structure constant in that limit.^[7]