course dates credits
Conformal Field Theory Jan 12 - Feb 6 3
teachers schedule term
Gabriel Cuomo 10:00 - 11:30 2

Program:

  • Motivation
  • Conformal symmetry in d>2 and d=2: conformal, Witt and Virasoro algebras
  • Conformal representations on fields: primaries and descendants
  • Conformal correlators
  • Ward identities
  • Scale, conformal, and Weyl invariance
  • General remarks on quantization and reflection positivity
  • Radial quantization and the state-operator correspondence
  • Unitarity bounds
  • The operator product expansion
  • Conformal bootstrap
  • Cardy formula and introduction to modular invariance in 2d CFTs
  • Introduction to minimal models: the Ising example
  • Weyl anomaly and RG monotonicity

Books:

Below are some suggested sources.

On basic aspects of CFTs:

  • EPFL doctoral course on CFT and gravity, Marco Meineri and Joao Penedones https://www.epfl.ch/labs/fsl/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/CFTandGravity.pdf
  • EPFL lectures on CFT, Slava Rychkov https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.05000
  • TASI Lectures on the Conformal Bootstrap, D. Simmons-Duffin https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.07982
On CFTs in d=2:
  • Applied Conformal Field Theory, P. Ginsparg https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9108028
  • Conformal Field Theory, Di Francesco Mathieu Senechal (book)
On anomalies and RG monotonicity:
  • Aspects of RG flows, Z. Komargodski https://www.theorie.physik.lmu.de/activities/schools/archiv/asc_school_14/komargodski_notes.pdf
On CFTs in Lorentzian signature:
  • TASI Lectures on Conformal Field Theory in Lorentzian Signature, D. Simmons-Duffin https://www.desy.de/~bargheer/string-journal-club/presentations/2023-05-16_Sebastian-Harris_Simmons-Duffin:_TASI-Lorentzian-CFT.pdf

Additionally, a sketchy pdf write-up of the lectures is attached.

Online Resources:

Filename Size (bytes) Date Modified
CFT_course_exam_topics.pdf 97.54 KB Feb 9 2026 10:59 AM
CFT_course.pdf 657.76 KB Feb 23 2026 3:18 PM