Schur Q-functions and a Kontsevich-Witten genus

Abstract

The Virasoro operations in Witten's theory of two-dimensional topological gravity have a homotopy-theoretic interpretation as endomorphisms of an ordinary cohomology theory with coefficients in a localization of I. Schur's ring Δof Q-functions. The resulting theory has many of the features of a vertex operator algebra.

16 pages; http://hopf.math.purdue.edu/