The moduli of annuli in random conformal geometry

Abstract: We obtain exact formulae for three basic quantities in random conformal geometry that depend on the modulus of an annulus. The first is for the law of the modulus of the Brownian annulus describing the scaling limit of uniformly sampled planar maps with annular topology, which is as predicted from the ghost partition function in bosonic string theory. The second is for the law of the modulus of the annulus bounded by a loop of a simple conformal loop ensemble (CLE) on a disk and the disk boundary. The formula is as conjectured from the partition function of the O$(n)$ loop model on the annulus derived by Saleur-Bauer (1989) and Cardy (2006). The third is for the annulus partition function of the SLE$_{8/3}$ loop introduced by Werner (2008), {confirming another} prediction of Cardy (2006). The physics principle underlying our proofs is that 2D quantum gravity coupled with conformal matters can be decomposed into three conformal field theories (CFT): the matter CFT, the Liouville CFT, and the ghost CFT. At the technical level, we rely on two types of integrability in Liouville quantum gravity, one from the scaling limit of random planar maps, the other from the Liouville CFT.