Introduction to conformal field theory, Lecture 1

In this seminar I will, over some 10 lectures, introduce the basics of conformal field theory. The emphasis will be on the physical content, however, there will be reference to mathematical formulations throughout. The course is based on a mixture of Ginsparg's "Applied Conformal Field Theory", hep-th/9108028 and Schottenloher's "A mathematical introduction to conformal field theory". Prerequisites for the course comprise: advanced QM, QFT, advanced QFT, and some familiarity with symplectic methods, which you can cover by watching my previous videos. In the first lecture I introduce the conformal group, and its classification via infinitesimal actions.