Tensor categories and the mathematics of rational and logarithmic conformal field theory

Understand

We review the construction of braided tensor categories and modular tensor categories from representations of vertex operator algebras, which correspond to chiral algebras in physics.

• The extensive and general theory underlying this construction also establishes the operator product expansion for intertwining operators, which correspond to chiral vertex operators, and more generally, it establishes the logarithmic operator product expansion for logarithmic intertwining operators.
• We review the main ideas in the construction of the tensor product bifunctors and the associativity isomorphisms.
• For rational and logarithmic conformal field theories, we review the precise results that yield braided tensor categories, and in the rational case, modular tensor categories as well.