Here is an introduction to the theory of quantum groups with emphasis on the spectacular connections with knot theory and Drinfeld's recent fundamental contributions. It presents the quantum groups attached to SL2 as well as the basic concepts of the theory of Hopf algebras. Coverage also focuses on Hopf algebras that produce solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation and provides an account of Drinfeld's elegant treatment of the monodromy of the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations.
This book reviews recent results on low-dimensional quantum field theories and their connection with quantum group theory and the theory of braided, balanced tensor categories. It presents detailed, mathematically precise introductions to these subjects and then continues with new results. Among the main results are a detailed analysis of the representation theory of U (sl ), for q a primitive root of unity, and a semi-simple quotient thereof, a classfication of braided tensor categories generated by an object of q-dimension less than two, and an application of these results to the theory of sectors in algebraic quantum field theory. This clarifies the notion of "quantized symmetries" in quantum fieldtheory. The reader is expected to be familiar with basic notions and resultsin algebra. The book is intended for research mathematicians, mathematical physicists and graduate students.
This book introduces two-dimensional supersymmetric field theories with emphasis on both linear and non-linear sigma models. Complex differential geometry, in connection with supersymmetry, has played a key role in most developments of the last thirty years in quantum field theory and string theory. Both structures introduce a great deal of rigidity compared to the more general categories of non-supersymmetric theories and real differential geometry, allowing for many general conceptual results and detailed quantitative predictions. Two-dimensional (0,2) supersymmetric quantum field theories provide a natural arena for the fruitful interplay between geometry and quantum field theory. These theories play an important role in string theory and provide generalizations, still to be explored fully, of rich structures such as mirror symmetry. They also have applications to non-perturbative four-dimensional physics, for instance as descriptions of surface defects or low energy dynamics of solitonic strings in four-dimensional supersymmetric theories. The purpose of these lecture notes is to acquaint the reader with these fascinating theories, assuming a background in conformal theory, quantum field theory and differential geometry at the beginning graduate level. In order to investigate the profound relations between structures from complex geometry and field theory the text begins with a thorough examination of the basic structures of (0,2) quantum field theory and conformal field theory. Next, a simple class of Lagrangian theories, the (0,2) Landau-Ginzburg models, are discussed, together with the resulting renormalization group flows, dynamics, and symmetries. After a thorough introduction and examination of (0,2) non-linear sigma models, the text introduces linear sigma models that, in particular, provide a unified treatment of non-linear sigma models and Landau-Ginzburg theories. Many exercises, along with discussions of relevant mathematical notions and important open problems in the field, are included in the text.
In the past decade there has been an extemely rapid growth in the interest and development of quantum group theory.This book provides students and researchers with a practical introduction to the principal ideas of quantum groups theory and its applications to quantum mechanical and modern field theory problems. It begins with a review of, and introduction to, the mathematical aspects of quantum deformation of classical groups, Lie algebras and related objects (algebras of functions on spaces, differential and integral calculi). In the subsequent chapters the richness of mathematical structure and power of the quantum deformation methods and non-commutative geometry is illustrated on the different examples starting from the simplest quantum mechanical system — harmonic oscillator and ending with actual problems of modern field theory, such as the attempts to construct lattice-like regularization consistent with space-time Poincaré symmetry and to incorporate Higgs fields in the general geometrical frame of gauge theories. Graduate students and researchers studying the problems of quantum field theory, particle physics and mathematical aspects of quantum symmetries will find the book of interest.
This book focuses on quantum groups, i.e., continuous deformations of Lie groups, and their applications in physics. These algebraic structures have been studied in the last decade by a growing number of mathematicians and physicists, and are found to underlie many physical systems of interest. They do provide, in fact, a sort of common algebraic ground for seemingly very different physical problems. As it has happened for supersymmetry, the q-group symmetries are bound to play a vital role in physics, even in fundamental theories like gauge theory or gravity. In fact q-symmetry can be considered itself as a generalization of supersymmetry, evident in the q-commutator formulation. The hope that field theories on q-groups are naturally reguralized begins to appear founded, and opens new perspectives for quantum gravity. The topics covered in this book include: conformal field theories and quantum groups, gauge theories of quantum groups, anyons, differential calculus on quantum groups and non-commutative geometry, poisson algebras, 2-dimensional statistical models, (2+1) quantum gravity, quantum groups and lattice physics, inhomogeneous q-groups, q-Poincaregroup and deformed gravity and gauging of W-algebras.
Professor Jerzy Lukierski, an outstanding specialist in the domain of quantum groups, will reach on May 21, 1995 the age of sixty. This is a birthday volume dedicated to him. It assumes the form of a collection of papers on a wide range of topics in modern research area from theoretical high energy physics to mathematical physics. Various topics of quantum groups will be treated with a special emphasis. Quantum groups is nowadays a very fashionable subject both in mathematics and high energy physics.
"The interplay between finite dimensional algebras and Lie theory dates back many years. In more recent times, these interrelations have become even more strikingly apparent. This text combines, for the first time in book form, the theories of finite dimensional algebras and quantum groups. More precisely, it investigates the Ringel-Hall algebra realization for the positive part of a quantum enveloping algebra associated with a symmetrizable Cartan matrix and it looks closely at the Beilinson-Lusztig-MacPherson realization for the entire quantum $\mathfrak{gl}_n$. The book begins with the two realizations of generalized Cartan matrices, namely, the graph realization and the root datum realization. From there, it develops the representation theory of quivers with automorphisms and the theory of quantum enveloping algebras associated with Kac-Moody Lie algebras. These two independent theories eventually meet in Part 4, under the umbrella of Ringel-Hall algebras. Cartan matrices can also be used to define an important class of groups--Coxeter groups--and their associated Hecke algebras. Hecke algebras associated with symmetric groups give rise to an interesting class of quasi-hereditary algebras, the quantum Schur algebras. The structure of these finite dimensional algebras is used in Part 5 to build the entire quantum $\mathfrak{gl}_n$ through a completion process of a limit algebra (the Beilinson-Lusztig-MacPherson algebra). The book is suitable for advanced graduate students. Each chapter concludes with a series of exercises, ranging from the routine to sketches of proofs of recent results from the current literature."--Publisher's website.