We present a closed form expression for the semiclassical OPE coefficients that are universal for all 2D CFTs with a “weak” light spectrum, by taking the semiclassical limit of the fusion kernel. We match this with a properly regularized and normalized bulk action evaluated on a geometry with three conical defects, analytically continued in the deficit angles beyond the range for which a metric with positive signature exists. The analytically continued geometry has a codimension-one coordinate singularity surrounding the heaviest conical defect. This singularity becomes a horizon after Wick rotating to Lorentzian signature, suggesting a connection between universality and the existence of a horizon.

The seek for a new universal formulation for describing various non-equilibrium processes is a central task of modern non-equilibrium thermodynamics. In this paper, a novel steady-state thermodynamic formalism was established for general Markov processes described by the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation. Furthermore, corresponding formalisms of steady-state thermodynamics for master equation and Fokker-Planck equation could be rigorously derived in mathematics. To be concrete, we proved that: 1) in the limit of continuous time, the steady-state thermodynamic formalism for the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation fully agrees with that for the master equation; 2) a similar one-to-one correspondence could be established rigorously between the master equation and Fokker-Planck equation in the limit of large system size; 3) when a Markov process is restrained to one-step jump, the steady-state thermodynamic formalism for the Fokker-Planck equation with discrete state variables also goes to that for master equations, as the discretization step gets smaller and smaller. Our analysis indicated that, with respect to the steady state, general Markov processes admit a unified and self-consistent non-equilibrium thermodynamic formulation, regardless of underlying detailed models.

We study tree level scattering amplitudes of four massless states in the double scaled little string theory, and compare them to perturbative loop amplitudes in six-dimensional super-Yang-Mills theory. The little string amplitudes are computed from correlators in the cigar coset CFT and in N = 2 minimal models. The results are expressed in terms of integrals of conformal blocks and evaluated numerically in the α ′ expansion. We find striking agreements with up to 2-loop scattering amplitudes of massless gluons in 6D SU(k) SYM at a ℤ_k invariant point on the Coulomb branch. We comment on the issue of UV divergence at higher loop orders in the gauge theory and discuss the implication of our results.

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.

Properties of the subset of polygonal paths in the Hilbert space of paths referring to a<i>d</i>-dimensional quantum-mechanical system are examined. The results are used to discuss various types of polygonal-path approximations appearing in the functional-integration theory. The uniform approximation is applied to extend the definition of the Feynman maps from our previous paper and to prove consistency of this extension. Relations of the extended<i>F</i> _<i>i</i> map to the Wiener integral are given.