Conformal defects from string field theory

Abstract

Unlike conformal boundary conditions, conformal defects of Virasoro minimal models lack classification. Alternatively to the defect perturbation theory and the truncated conformal space approach, we employ open string field theory (OSFT) techniques to explore the space of conformal defects. We illustrate the method by an analysis of OSFT around the background associated to the (1, 2) topological defect in diagonal unitary minimal models. Numerical analysis of OSFT equations of motion leads to an identification of a nice family of solutions, recovering the picture of infrared fixed points due to Kormos, Runkel and Watts. In particular, we find a continuum of solutions in the Ising model case and 6 solutions for other minimal models. OSFT provides us with numerical estimates of the g-function and other coefficients of the boundary state.