Conformal field theories associated to regular chiral vertex operator algebras I: theories over the projective line

Based on any chiral vertex operator algebra satisfying a suitable finiteness condition, the semisimplicity of the zero-mode algebra as well as a regularity for induced modules, we construct conformal field theory over the projective line with the chiral vertex operator algebra as symmetries of the theory. We appropriately generalize the argument in [TUY] so that we are able to define sheaves of conformal blocks for chiral vertex operator algebras and study them in detail. We prove the factorization theorem under the fairly general conditions for chiral vertex operator algebras and the zero-mode algebras.