Download or read book Vertex Operator Algebras and the Monster written by Igor Frenkel and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 1989-05-01 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is motivated by and develops connections between several branches of mathematics and physics--the theories of Lie algebras, finite groups and modular functions in mathematics, and string theory in physics. The first part of the book presents a new mathematical theory of vertex operator algebras, the algebraic counterpart of two-dimensional holomorphic conformal quantum field theory. The remaining part constructs the Monster finite simple group as the automorphism group of a very special vertex operator algebra, called the "moonshine module" because of its relevance to "monstrous moonshine."