Conformal deformation by the currents of affine g

Abstract

We develop a quasi-systematic approach to continous parameters in conformal and superconformal field theory. The formulation unifies continous twists, ghosts, and mechanisms of spontaneous breakdown in a general hierarchy of conformal deformations about a given theory by its own currents. Highlights include continously twisted Sugawara and coset constructions, generalized ghosts, classes of N = 1 and 2 superconformal field theories with continuous central charge, vertex-operators for arbitrarily deformed lattices, operator-valued conformal weights and/or central charges, and generalizations of continuous SO( p, q) families of conformal field theories.