String theory on NS-NS AdS_3 x S^3 admits an exactly marginal deformation which breaks the SL(2,R)_R x SL(2,R)_L isometry of AdS_3 down to SL(2,R)_R x U(1)_L. The holographic dual is an exotic and only partially understood type of two-dimensional CFT with a reduced unbroken global conformal symmetry group. In this paper we study the deformed theory on the string worldsheet. It is found to be related by a spectral flow which is nonlocal in spacetime to the undeformed worldsheet theory. An exact formula for the spectrum of massive strings is presented.

Let O_c be the category of finite-length central-charge-c modules for the Virasoro Lie algebra whose composition factors are irreducible quotients of reducible Verma modules. Recently, it has been shown that O_c admits vertex algebraic tensor category structure for any c∈C. Here, we determine the structure of this tensor category when c=13−6p−6/p for an integer p>1. For such c, we prove that O_c is rigid, and we construct projective covers of irreducible modules in a natural tensor subcategory O_c^0. We then compute all tensor products involving irreducible modules and their projective covers. Using these tensor product formulas, we show that O_c has a semisimplification which, as an abelian category, is the Deligne product of two tensor subcategories that are tensor equivalent to the Kazhdan-Lusztig categories for affine sl_2 at levels −2+p^±1. Next, as a straightforward consequence of the braided tensor category structure on O_c together with the theory of vertex operator algebra extensions, we rederive known results for triplet vertex operator algebras W(p), including rigidity, fusion rules, and construction of projective covers. Finally, we prove a recent conjecture of Negron that O_c^0 is braided tensor equivalent to the PSL(2,C)-equivariantization of the category of W(p)-modules.

Let<i>M</i> be a space-time whose local mass density is non-negative everywhere. Then we prove that the total mass of<i>M</i> as viewed from spatial infinity (the ADM mass) must be positive unless<i>M</i> is the flat Minkowski space-time. (So far we are making the reasonable assumption of the existence of a maximal spacelike hypersurface. We will treat this topic separately.) We can generalize our result to admit wormholes in the initial-data set. In fact, we show that the total mass associated with each asymptotic regime is non-negative with equality only if the space-time is flat.

We consider Bose gases consisting of N particles trapped in a box with volume one and interacting through a repulsive potential with scattering length of order N−1 (Gross–Pitaevskii regime). We determine the ground state energy and the low-energy excitation spectrum, up to errors vanishing as N→∞. Our results confirm Bogoliubov’s predictions.

In this note, we study submanifold geometry of the Atiyah--Hitchin manifold, a double cover of the 2-monopole moduli space, which plays an important role in various settings such as the supersymmetric background of string theory. When the manifold is naturally identified as the total space of a line bundle over S^2, the zero section is a distinguished minimal 2-sphere of considerable interest. In particular, there has been a conjecture about the uniqueness of this minimal 2-sphere among all closed minimal 2-surfaces. We show that this minimal 2-sphere satisfies the ``strong stability condition" proposed in our earlier work, and confirm the global uniqueness as a corollary.