We study constraints imposed on a general unitary two-dimensional conformal field theory by modular invariance. We begin with a review of previous bounds on the conformal dimension Delta1 of the lowest primary operator assuming unitarity, a discrete spectrum, modular invariance, cL, cR > 1, and no extended chiral algebra. We then obtain bounds on the conformal dimensions Delta2, Delta3 using no additional assumptions. We also show that in order to find a bound for Delta4 or higher Deltan, we need to assume a larger minimum value for ctot that grows logarithmically with n. We next extend the previous results to remove the requirement that our two-dimensional conformal field theories have no extended chiral algebra. We then show that modular invariance also implies an upper bound on the total number of states of positive energy less than ctot=24 (or equivalently, states of conformal dimension between ctot=24 and ctot=12), in terms of the number of negative energy states. Finally, we consider the case where the CFT has a gravitational dual and investigate the gravitational interpretation of our results. Using the AdS3/CFT2 correspondence, we obtain an upper bound on the lightest few massive excitations (both with and without the constraint of no chiral primary operators) in a theory of 3D matter and gravity with Lambda < 0. We show our results are consistent with facts and expectations about the spectrum of BTZ black holes in 2+1 gravity. We then discuss the upper and lower bounds on number of states and primary operators in the dual gravitational theory, focusing on the case of AdS3 pure gravity.

Nesta tese, estudamos a integrabilidade quântica de modelos contínuos relevantes no contexto da quantização da supercorda do tipo IIB em AdS5 x S5, e, conseqüentemente, de interesse para a demonstração e uma melhor compreensão da correspondência AdS/CFT. Para os modelos de Landau-Lifshitz e de Alday-Arutyunov-Frolov, calculamos as amplitudes de espalhamento para três partículas e mostramos a fatorabilidade de suas matrizes S em primeira ordem não-trivial. Propomos também um novo método para a quantização de sistemas integráveis contínuos no exemplo do modelo de Landau-Lifshitz su(1;1). Nosso método fornece uma solução alternativa para o problema do ordenamento operatorial, bem como uma prescrição para a dedução das identidades de traço e do espectro das cargas quânticas conservadas. Ademais, mostramos que, por ser baseado em um processo de regularização e renormalização operatorial, concomitante à construção das extensões auto-adjuntas, a integrabilidade é preservada durante a quantização. / In this thesis, we study the quantum integrability of continuous models which arise from consistent truncations of type IIB superstring theory on AdS5 X S5, and, therefore are relevant for improving our current understanding of the AdS/CFT correspondence. For the Landau-Lifshitz and the Alday-Arutyunov-Frolov models, we compute the three-particle scattering amplitude and show the factorizability of the corresponding S matrices at the first non-trivial order. We also propose a new method for quantizing continuous integrable systems and apply it to the su(1;1) Landau-Lifshitz model. Our method provides an alternative solution to the longstanding operator ordering problem and gives a prescription to obtain the quantum trace identities, and the spectrum for the higher-order local charges. Moreover, since it is based on operator regularization and renormalization, as well as on the construction of the self-adjoint extensions, the integrability is preserved during the quantization process

Nesta tese foram estudadas configurações de cordas em movimentos de rotação e de oscilação no âmbito da correspondência AdS/CFT. Estas cordas movimentam-se nos espaços AdS5 × S5, de Lunin e Maldacena, R1, 9 e R1, 9 deformado. Para o caso da corda em rotação, determinou-se a existência do mágnon gigante e da corda farpada. Para o caso da corda oscilante, foram encontradas as soluções das equações de movimento clássicas e determinada a energia. Também calculamos explicitamente o número de supercargas preservadas para os espaços AdS5 × S5 e para R1, 9 deformado. / In this thesis we studied rotating and oscillating strings under the AdS/CFT correspondence. These strings move in the AdS5 × S5, Lunin and Maldacena, R1, 9 and deformed R1, 9 spaces. In the case of the rotating string, the giant magnon and the spiky string were determined. In the case of the oscillating string, we found the solutions fo the classical equations of motion and the energy. We also explicitly calculated the number of preserved supercharges for the AdS5 × S5and deformed R1, 9 spaces.

Les corrections d’ordre supérieur en dérivées applicables à la théorie de supergravité à onze dimensions constituent un puissant outil pour étudier la structure miscroscopique de la théorie M. Plus partculièrement, l’invariant supersymétrique à l’ordre huit en en dérivées est nécessaire à la cohérence quantique de la théorie, mais il n’en existe à ce jour aucune expression complète. Dans cette thèse, après une introduction formelle aux théories de supergravité, nous présentons une technique appelée principe d’action (en superespace), dont le but est de générer le superinvariant complet associé au terme de Chern-Simons d’ordre huit. Bien que ce résultat ne soit pas encore atteint, nous en déterminons certaines caratérisiques, et ouvrons la voie à une résolution systématiques des étapes de calcul à venir. Dans le chapitre suivant, nous présentons les principales fonctionnalités du programme informatique crée pour gérer les imposants calculs liés au principe d’action. Ce programme est particulièrement adapté au traitement des matrices gamma, des tenseurs et des spineurs tels qu’ils surviennent en superespace. Enfin, à l’aide de ce programme, nous abordons un autre sujet calculatoire : la condensation fermionique en supergravité IIA massive. En utilisant la formulation en superespace des supergravités IIA, nous dérivons les termes de l’action quartiques en fermions, puis en imposant une valeur moyenne dans le vide non-nulle, nous montrons qu’il est possible de construire une solution de géométrie de Sitter dans deux cas simples / High order derivative terms in eleven dimensional supergravity are a powerful tool to probe the microscopic structure of M-theory. In particular, the superinvariant at order eight in number of derivatives is required for quantum consistency, but has not been completely constructed to this day. In this thesis, after a formal introduction to supergravity, we focus on a technique called the actions principle, in superspace, with the aim of generating the full superinvariant associated to the Chern-Simons term at order eight. Although we do not construct the superinvariant, we determine some of its characteristics, and pave the way for a systematic treatment of the computations leading to the correction. Then we present the main features of the computer program we built for dealing with the computations encountered in the action principle. It is specifically designed to deal with gamma matrices, tensors and spinors as they appear in superspace. Finally, with the help of this program, we tackle another computationally intensive subject : the fermionic condensation in IIA massive superspace. We use the superspace formulations of IIA supergravitites to find the quartic fermion term of the action, and by imposing a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value for this term, we realize a de Sitter solution in two simple cases

We study a quantum mechanical $\sigma$-model whose target space is a hyperKähler cone. As shown by Singleton, [184], such a theory has superconformal invariance under the algebra $\mathfrak{osp}(4^*|4)$. One can formally define a superconformal index that counts the short representations of the algebra. When the hyperKähler cone has a projective symplectic resolution, we define a regularised superconformal index. The index is defined as the equivariant Hirzebruch index of the Dolbeault cohomology of the resolution, hereafter referred to as the index. In many cases, the index can be explicitly calculated via localisation theorems. By limiting to zero the fugacities in the index corresponding to an isometry, one forms the index of the submanifold of the target space invariant under that isometry. There is a limit of the fugacities that gives the Hilbert series of the target space, and often there is another limit of the parameters that produces the Poincaré polynomial for $\mathbb C^\times$-equivariant Borel-Moore homology of the space. A natural class of hyperKähler cones are Nakajima quiver varieties. We compute the index of the $A$-type quiver varieties by making use of the fact that they are submanifolds of instanton moduli space invariant under an isometry. Every Nakajima quiver variety arises as the Higgs branch of a three dimensional $\mathcal N =4$ quiver gauge theory, or equivalently the Coulomb branch of the mirror dual theory. We show the equivalence between the descriptions of the Hilbert series of a line bundle on the ADHM quiver variety via localisation, and via Hanany's monopole formula. Finally, we study the action of the Poisson algebra of the coordinate ring on the Hilbert series of line bundles. We restrict to the case of looking at the Coulomb branch of balanced $ADE$-type quivers in a certain infinite rank limit. In this limit, the Poisson algebra is a semiclassical limit of the Yangian of $ADE$-type. The space of global sections of the line bundle is a graded representation of the Poisson algebra. We find that, as a representation, it is a tensor product of the space of holomorphic functions with a finite dimensional representation. This finite dimensional representation is a tensor product of two irreducible representations of the Yangian, defined by the choice of line bundle. We find a striking duality between the characters of these finite dimensional representations and the generating function for Poincaré polynomials.

With the use of chiral theory of mesons [1], [2] we evaluate the decay rate of η′ → π+π−π+π−. Our theoretical study of this problem is different from the previous theo- retical study [3] and our predicted result is in a good agreement with the experiment. In this chiral theory we evaluate Feynman diagrams up to one loop and the decay rate is calculated with the use of triangle and box diagrams. The ρ0 meson includes in both type of diagrams as a resonance state. Divergent integrals in the loop calculations are regularized with the use of n-dimensional ’t Hooft-Veltman regularization technique. At the last step to obtain the decay rate, the phase space integral has been calculated.

In this thesis, the clean angular observables in the $\bar{B} \to D^{*+} \ell^- \bar{\nu}_{\ell}$ angular distribution is studied. Similar angular observables are widely studied in $B \to K^* \mu^+ \mu^-$ decays. We believed that these angular observables may have different sensitivities to different new physics structures.

La théorie de cordes unifie de façon naturelle les théories de jauge, qui décrivent les interactions entre les particules élémentaires, avec une théorie quantique de la gravitation. Ces dernières années ont apporté de grands progrès dans la compréhension des états non-perturbatifs de la théorie, ses aspects holographiques, ainsi que la construction de modèles proches du Modèle Standard. Néanmoins, il reste des défis pour la théorie de cordes, qui incluent une définition non-perturbative, une meilleure compréhension de l'holographie, et le problème de la constante cosmologique. Ma recherche s'est concentrée sur des aspects formels des théories de gravitation quantique, qui incluent les trous noirs, la dépendance du temps, et l'holographie. Gr^ace à de nouveaux résultats dans le domaine de la théorie conforme avec spectre continu, mes collaborateurs et moi-m^eme avons avancé dans la compréhension de l'holographie dans des fonds avec dilaton linéaire, ainsi que dans le plongement de théories de jauge supersymétriques dans la théorie de cordes. En particulier, on a étudié des théories conformes supersymétriques avec spectre continu que l'on utilise pour construire des fonds de théories de cordes non-compacts et courbés. Les résultats obtenus nous ont permis de décrire des exemples explicites de symétrie miroir pour des fonds non-compacts. En introduisant des bords dans les théories conformes, on a analysé des états non-perturbatifs de la théorie de cordes, les D-branes. A basse énergie, les degrés de liberté sur les D-branes interagissent par des interactions de jauge. Avec ces outils, on a réussi à plonger une dualité infrarouge de théorie de jauge supersymétrique dans la théorie de cordes, et on a montré que la dualité correspond à une monodromie pour les états de bord dans l'espace de modules de la théorie conforme.<br><br> Dans cette thèse, on discute de nombreux autres liens entre la théorie conforme, la théorie de jauge et la gravitation. La plupart des contributions décrites étaient motivées par la théorie de cordes. Des exemples sont l'analyse d'états qui préservent la supersymétrie et leur lien avec les algèbres affines, la dépendance du temps et le dictionnaire holographique, l'analyse directe de la quantification de la gravité en présence d'un trou noir, la réalisation du scenario sans-bord pour la fonction d'onde de l'univers en théorie de cordes, une formule de Verlinde pour les théories conformes non-rationnelles et la construction de solutions non-géometriques à la supergravité. Dans d'autres travaux, je me suis concentré sur des théories qui quantifient la gravité plus directement, mais qui pourraient avoir moins de succès dans le problème de l'unification des forces en quatre dimensions. Ces théories ont quand-m^eme le potentiel de nous apprendre des aspects communs à toute théorie de gravitation quantique. Par exemple, on a analysé les degrés de liberté responsables de l'entropie d'un trou noir en trois dimensions, et nous avons argumenté sur la difficulté de reconcilier l'invariance modulaire avec l'unitarité en dehors de la théorie de cordes. On a aussi discuté la diffusion de ces trous noirs. D'autres contributions à la théorie de jauge non-commutative, la théorie de jauge supersymétrique, la production de paires dans un espace courbe, et cetera, sont aussi relativement indépendantes du cadre de la théorie de cordes.<br><br> Il me semble qu'il reste intéressant d'étudier des questions difficiles sur la théorie de jauge et la gravitation quantique, dans la cadre de la théorie de cordes, et en dehors de ce cadre, et d'^etre guidé par des problèmes ouverts durs qui doivent mener à un progrès concret par incréments ou par sauts.

<p>This thesis describes some aspects of noncommutative geometry and conformal field theory. The motivation for the investigations made comes to a large extent from string theory. This theory is today considered to be the most promising way to find a solution to the problem of unifying the four fundamental interactions in one single theory. The thesis gives a short background presentation of string theory and points out how noncommutative geometry and conformal field theory are of relevance within the string theoretical framework. There is also given some further information on noncommutative geometry and conformal field theory. The results from the three papers on which the thesis is based are presented in the text. It is shown in Paper 1 that, for a gauge theory in a flat noncommutative background only the gauge groups <i>U(N)</i> can be used in a straightforward way. These theories can arise as low energy limits of string theory. Paper 2 concerns boundary conformal field theory, which can be used to describe open strings in various backgrounds. Here different orbifold theories which are described using simple currents of the chiral algebra are investigated. The formalism is applied to ``branes´´ in <b>Z</b>₂<b> </b>orbifolds of the <i>SU(2)</i> WZW-model and to the <i>D</i>-series of unitary minimal models. In Paper 3 two different descriptions of an invariant star-product on <i>S²</i> are compared and the characteristic class that classifies the star-product is calculated. The Fedosov-Nest-Tsygan index theorem is used to compute the characteristic class.</p>

This thesis consists of two parts, which can be read separately. In the first part we study aspects of topological field theories. We show how to topologically twist three-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric Chern-Simons theory using a contact structure on the underlying manifold. This gives us a formulation of Chern-Simons theory together with a set of auxiliary fields and an odd symmetry. For Seifert manifolds, we show how to use this odd symmetry to localize the path integral of Chern-Simons theory. The formulation of three-dimensional Chern-Simons theory using a contact structure admits natural generalizations to higher dimensions. We introduce and study these theories. The focus is on the five-dimensional theory, which can be understood as a topologically twisted version of N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. When formulated on contact manifolds that are circle fibrations over a symplectic manifold, it localizes to contact instantons. For the theory on the five-sphere, we show that the perturbative part of the partition function is given by a matrix model. In the second part of the thesis, we study supersymmetric sigma models in the Hamiltonian formalism, both in a classical and in a quantum mechanical setup. We argue that the so called Chiral de Rham complex, which is a sheaf of vertex algebras, is a natural framework to understand quantum aspects of supersymmetric sigma models in the Hamiltonian formalism. We show how a class of currents which generate symmetry algebras for the classical sigma model can be defined within the Chiral de Rham complex framework, and for a six-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold we calculate the equal-time commutators between the currents and show that they generate the Odake algebra.