Published February 2012 | Version v1
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The foundational origin of integrability in quantum field theory

  • 1. FU-Berlin (Germany). Institut fuer Theoretische Physik
  • 2. Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas (CBPF), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

Description

There are two foundational model-independent concepts of integrability in QFT. One is 'dynamical' and generalizes the solvability in closed analytic form of the dynamical aspects as known from the Kepler two-body problem and its quantum mechanical counterpart. The other, referred to as 'kinematical' integrability, has no classical nor even quantum mechanical counterpart; it describes the relation between so called eld algebra and its local observable subalgebras and their discrete inequivalent representation classes (the DHR theory of superselection sectors). In the standard case of QFTs with mass gaps it contains the information about the representation of the (necessary compact) internal symmetry group and statistics in form of a tracial state on a 'dual group'. In Lagrangian or functional quantization one deals with the eld algebra and the division into observable /eld algebras does presently not play a role in constructive approaches to QFT. 'Kinematical' integrability is however of particular interest in conformal theories where the observable algebra fulfils the Huygens principle (light like propagation) and lives on the compactified Minkowski spacetime whereas the eld algebra, whose spacetime symmetry group is the universal covering of the conformal group lives on the universal covering of the compactified Minkowski spacetime. Since the (anomalous) dimensions of fields show up in the spectrum of the unitary representative of the center of this group , the kinematical structure contained in the relation fields/Huygens observables valuable information which in the usual terminology would be called 'dynamical'. The dynamical integrability is defined in terms of properties of 'wedge localization' and uses the fact that modular localization theory allows to 'emulate' interaction-free wedge-localized operators in a objective manner with the wedge localized interacting algebra. Emulation can be viewed as a generalization of the functorial relation between localized subspaces of Wigner particle spaces and localized subalgebras of the global algebra of all operators on Wigner-Fock space which does not require a classical-quantum quantization parallelism. Its extension to interacting QFTs leads to a profound understanding of integrability versus non integrability and of the crossing property of particle theory. Integrable models with nontrivial scattering amplitudes can only occur in d=1+1 where they are only consistent with elastic S-matrices. The associated eld theories are the so-called 'factorizing models'; there existence can be (and in many cases has been) established by methods of modular localized operator algebras. (author)

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Imprint Pagination
53 p.
Report number
CBPF-NF--003/12