Fermionic Sum Representations for Conformal Field Theory Characters

Abstract

We present sum representations for all characters of the unitary Virasoro minimal models. They can be viewed as fermionic companions of the Rocha-Caridi sum representations, the latter related to the (bosonic) Feigin-Fuchs-Felder construction. We also give fermionic representations for certain characters of the general $(G^{(1)})_k \times (G^{(1)})_l \over (G^{(1)})_{k+l}}$ coset conformal field theories, the non-unitary minimal models $\mathcal{M}(p,p+2)$ and $\mathcal{M}(p,kp+1)$, the $N$=2 superconformal series, and the $\ZZ_N$-parafermion theories, and relate the $q\to 1$ behaviour of all these fermionic sum representations to the thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz.

15/9 pages in harvmac, ITP-SB-93-05/RU-93-01. [Subsections 4.5 and 4.6 concerning N=2 super- and Z_N-parafermion characters were added, and minor corrections made.]