View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by CERN Document Server . SPHT/t98/112 Conformal Field Theory Techniques in Random Matrix models Ivan K. Kostov ∗† C.E.A. - Saclay, Service de Physique Th´eorique F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France In these notes we explain how the CFT description of random matrix models can be used to perform actual calculations. Our basic example is the hermitian matrix model, reformulated as a conformal invariant theory of free fermions. We give an explicit operator construction of the corre- sponding collective field theory in terms of a bosonic field on a hyperel- liptic Riemann surface, with special operators associated with the branch points. The quasiclassical expressions for the spectral kernel and the joint eigenvalue probabilities are then easily obtained as correlation functions of current, fermionic and twist operators. The result for the spectral kernel is valid both in macroscopic and microscopic scales. At the end we briefly consider generalizations in different directions. Based on the talk of the author at the Third Claude Itzykson- Meet- ing, ”Integrable Models and Applications to Statistical Mechanics ”, Paris, July 27-29, 1998, and at the workshop “Random matrices and integrable systems”, Univ. of Warwick, November 2-4 1998. July 1999 ∗ Member of CNRS †
[email protected] 1. Introduction The random matrix models have various applications in rather different domains, and sometimes language barriers prevents the flow of ideas and knowledge from one field to another. For example, such powerful techniques as the conformal field theory (CFT) description of the random matrix models and their relation with the integrable hierarchies, which were developped extensively by the string theorists in the early 90’s, are practically unknown to the mesoscopic physicists.