We study two dimensional N = (2, 2) Landau-Ginzburg models with tensor valued superfields with the aim of constructing large central charge superconformal field theories which are solvable using large N techniques. We demonstrate the viability of such constructions and motivate the study of anisotropic tensor models. Such theories are a novel deformation of tensor models where we break the continuous symmetries while preserving the large N solvability. Specifically, we examine theories with superpotentials involving tensor contractions chosen to pick out melonic diagrams. The anisotropy is introduced by further biasing individual terms by different coefficients, all of the same order, to retain large N scaling. We carry out a detailed analysis of the resulting low energy fixed point and comment on potential applications to holography. Along the way we also examine gauged versions of the models (with partial anisotropy) and find generically that such theories have a non-compact Higgs branch of vacua.

We investigate the emergence of topological defect lines in the conformal Regge limit of two-dimensional conformal field theory. We explain how a local operator can be factorized into a holomorphic and an anti-holomorphic defect operator connected through a topological defect line, and discuss implications on analyticity and Lorentzian dynamics including aspects of chaos. We derive a formula relating the infinite boost limit, which holographically encodes the “opacity” of bulk scattering, to the action of topological defect lines on local operators. Leveraging the unitary bound on the opacity and the positivity of fusion coefficients, we show that the spectral radii of a large class of topological defect lines are given by their loop expectation values. Factorization also gives a formula relating the local and defect operator algebras and fusion categorical data. We then review factorization in rational conformal field theory from a defect perspective, and examine irrational theories. On the orbifold branch of the c = 1 free boson theory, we find a unified description for the topological defect lines through which the twist fields are factorized; at irrational points, the twist fields factorize through “non-compact” topological defect lines which exhibit continuous defect operator spectra. Along the way, we initiate the development of a formalism to characterize non-compact topological defect lines.

We construct the boundary phase space in D-dimensional Einstein gravity with a generic given co-dimension one null surface N as the boundary. The associated boundary symmetry algebra is a semi-direct sum of diffeomorphisms of \mathcal{N} and Weyl rescalings. It is generated by D towers of surface charges that are generic functions over \mathcal{N}. These surface charges can be rendered integrable for appropriate slicings of the phase space, provided there is no graviton flux through \mathcal{N}. In one particular slicing of this type, the charge algebra is the direct sum of the Heisenberg algebra and diffeomorphisms of the transverse space, \mathcal{N}_v for any fixed value of the advanced time v. Finally, we introduce null surface expansion- and spin-memories, and discuss associated memory effects that encode the passage of gravitational waves through \mathcal{N}, imprinted in a change of the surface charges.

A Cardy formula for 6d superconformal field theories (SCFTs) conjectured by Di Pietro and Komargodski governs the universal behavior of the supersymmetric partition function on S^1_β×S^5 in the limit of small β and fixed squashing of the S^5. For a general 6d SCFT, we study its 5d effective action, which is dominated by the supersymmetric completions of perturbatively gauge-invariant Chern-Simons terms in the small β limit. Explicitly evaluating these supersymmetric completions gives the precise squashing dependence in the Cardy formula. For SCFTs with a pure Higgs branch (also known as very Higgsable SCFTs), we determine the Chern-Simons levels by explicitly going onto the Higgs branch and integrating out the Kaluza-Klein modes of the 6d fields on S^1_β. We then discuss tensor branch flows, where an apparent mismatch between the formula in Di Pietro-Komargodski and the free field answer requires an additional contribution from BPS strings. This "missing contribution" is further sharpened by the relation between the fractional part of the Chern-Simons levels and the (mixed) global gravitational anomalies of the 6d SCFT. We also comment on the Cardy formula for 4d N=2 SCFTs in relation to Higgs branch and Coulomb branch flows.

We study the relationship between TsT transformations, marginal deformations of string theory on AdS3 backgrounds, and irrelevant deformations of 2d CFTs. We show that TsT transformations of NS-NS backgrounds correspond to instantaneous deformations of the worldsheet action by the antisymmetric product of two Noether currents, holographically mirroring the definition of the TT¯, JT¯, TJ¯, and JJ¯ deformations of 2d CFTs. Applying a TsT transformation to string theory on BTZ ×S^3×M^4 we obtain a general class of rotating black string solutions, including the Horne-Horowitz and the Giveon-Itzhaki-Kutasov ones as special cases, which we show are holographically dual to thermal states in single-trace TT¯-deformed CFTs. We also find a smooth solution interpolating between global AdS3 in the IR and a linear dilaton background in the UV that is interpreted as the NS-NS ground state in the dual TT¯-deformed CFT. This background suggests the existence of an upper bound on the deformation parameter above which the solution becomes complex. We find that the worldsheet spectrum, the thermodynamics of the black strings (in particular their Bekenstein-Hawking entropy), and the critical value of the deformation parameter match the corresponding quantities obtained from single-trace TT¯ deformations.