Central charge ($c$)

The central charge is the coefficient of the fourth-order pole in the stress-tensor operator-product expansion, $T(z)T(w)\sim c/[2(z-w{)}^4]+\cdots$. A free real boson contributes one and a free real chiral fermion contributes one half.

In a two-dimensional supersymmetric conformal field theory, the superconformal current has weight $3/2$ and its self-OPE closes on the stress tensor and the central charge.

For RNS string matter normalized by $[{\dot{X}}^{\mu }(\sigma ),X^{\nu }({\sigma }^{\prime })]=-i\pi {\eta }^{\mu \nu }\delta (\sigma -{\sigma }^{\prime })$ and $\{{\psi }_1^{\mu }(\sigma ),{\psi }_1^{\nu }({\sigma }^{\prime })\}=\pi {\eta }^{\mu \nu }\delta (\sigma -{\sigma }^{\prime })$, put $A={\partial }_{+}X$ and $J={\psi }_1\cdot A$. Then $[A^{\mu }(\sigma ),A^{\nu }({\sigma }^{\prime })]=(i\pi /2){\eta }^{\mu \nu }{\partial }_{\sigma }\delta (\sigma -{\sigma }^{\prime })$. The noncentral part of $\{J(\sigma ),J({\sigma }^{\prime })\}$ is $\pi \delta A^2+(i\pi /2){\partial }_{\sigma }\delta {\psi }_1(\sigma )\cdot {\psi }_1({\sigma }^{\prime })$. The distributional derivative identity $f(\sigma ,{\sigma }^{\prime }){\delta }^{\prime }=f(\sigma ,\sigma ){\delta }^{\prime }+({\partial }_{{\sigma }^{\prime }}f)(\sigma ,\sigma )\delta$, with a vanishing coincident Grassmann bilinear, converts this to $\pi \delta {\theta }_{++}$. Use the chiral equation of motion to identify ${\partial }_{\sigma }{\psi }_1={\partial }_{+}{\psi }_1$. Quantum normal ordering adds a central contact term proportional to ${\delta }^{\prime \prime }$, the local form of the N=1 super-Virasoro algebra central extension.

The holomorphic N=1 super-Virasoro algebra extends the Virasoro algebra by fermionic modes $G_r$ satisfying $\{G_r,G_s\}=2L_{r+s}+(c/12)(4r^2-1){\delta }_{r,-s}$.

With the standard string oscillator algebra and $G_0={\sum }_m{\alpha }_m\cdot {\psi }_{-m}$, pairing positive and negative modes gives $G_0^2={\alpha }_0^2/2+{\sum }_{m>0}({\alpha }_{-m}\cdot {\alpha }_m+m{\psi }_{-m}\cdot {\psi }_m)$. This is the vacuum-normal-ordered Ramond sector generator $L_0^R$, so $\{G_0,G_0\}=2L_0^R$. Rescaling the superconformal current rescales its square quadratically; its normalization cannot be ignored when comparing it with a fixed Virasoro generator.