2D conformal field theories and holography

Abstract

It is known that the chiral part of any 2D conformal field theory defines a 3D topological quantum field theory: quantum states of this TQFT are the CFT conformal blocks. The main aim of this paper is to show that a similar CFT/TQFT relation exists also for the full CFT. The 3D topological theory that arises is a certain “square” of the chiral TQFT. Such topological theories were studied by Turaev and Viro; they are related to 3D gravity. We establish an operator/state correspondence in which operators in the chiral TQFT correspond to states in the Turaev–Viro theory. We use this correspondence to interpret CFT correlation functions as particular quantum states of the Turaev–Viro theory. We compute the components of these states in the basis in the Turaev–Viro Hilbert space given by colored 3-valent graphs. The formula we obtain is a generalization of the Verlinde formula. The later is obtained from our expression for a zero colored graph. Our results give an interesting “holographic” perspective on conformal field theories in two dimensions.