Mikhail Pavlov
Research Fellow
Research interests
I am interested in two-dimensional conformal field theories (2d CFTs) and the duality between 2d CFTs and 3d quantum gravity on the AdS background (the AdS/CFT correspondence). My colleagues and I have detailed this correspondence for the conformal theories with Virasoro symmetry on the sphere, showing that multi-point classical conformal blocks in 2d CFTs can be calculated as weighted lengths of graphs that live on AdS_3 with conical defects. My other results concern conformal theories on surfaces of higher genus, as well as conformal theories with extended (W_N) symmetries, where we have investigated (in various approximations) the functions of multi-point conformal blocks.
Selected publications:
1. Pavlov, M. Differential equations for classical Virasoro blocks with heavy and light operators. Eur. Phys. J. C 85, 982. arXiv: 2408.15967 [hep-th].
2. Pavlov, M. Global torus blocks in the necklace channel. Eur. Phys. J. C 83, 1026. arXiv: 2302.10153 [hep-th].
3. Alkalaev, K., Mandrygin, S. & Pavlov, M. Torus conformal blocks and Casimir equations in the necklace channel. JHEP 10 (2022), 091. arXiv: 2205.05038 [hep-th].
4. Pavlov, M. Example of 4-pt non-vacuum W_3 classical block. Phys. Lett. B 840, 137855. arXiv: 2205.06208 [hep-th].
5. Pavlov, M. Large- c conformal (n ≤ 6)-point blocks with superlight weights and holographic Steiner trees. Phys. Lett. B 816 (2021), 136273. arXiv: 2101.04513 [hep-th].
6. Alkalaev, K. & Pavlov, M. Holographic variables for CFT2 conformal blocks with heavy operators. Nucl. Phys. B 956 (2020), 115018. arXiv: 2001.02604 [hep-th].
7. Alkalaev, K. B. & Pavlov, M. Four-point conformal blocks with three heavy background operators. JHEP 08 (2019), 038. arXiv: 1905.03195 [hep-th].
8. Alkalaev, K. & Pavlov, M. Perturbative classical conformal blocks as Steiner trees on the hyperbolic disk. JHEP 02 (2019), 023. arXiv: 1810.07741 [hep-th].
Publications affiliated with ITMP:
- V. Belavin & Mikhail Pavlov, Towards W_3 classical blocks with semi-degenerate operators, arXiv: 2512.23868 [hep-th]
