Vertex operator algebras and the zeta function

Abstract

We announce a new type of "Jacobi identity" for vertex operator algebras, incorporating values of the Riemann zeta function at negative integers. Using this we "explain" and generalize some recent work of S. Bloch's relating values of the zeta function with the commutators of certain operators and Lie algebras of differential operators.

21 pages, LaTeX, to be published in Contemporary Math., Vol. 248