Quantum affine algebras and deformations of the Virasoro and \({\mathcal W}\)-algebras (Q1924019)

There is a description of the center \(Z_h(\widehat{sl}_2)\) of a completion \(\widetilde{U}_h (\widehat{sl}_2)_{cr}\) of the quantum affine algebra \(U_q (\widehat{sl}_2)\) at the critical level, its Poisson structure and spectrum. A homomorphism of \(\widetilde{U}_h (\widehat{sl}_2)_{cr}\) to the tensor product of a certain Heisenberg algebra and a Heisenberg-Poisson algebra \({\mathfrak H}(sl_2)\) are constructed such that the restriction to the center is a homomorphism of Poisson algebras, which is a \(q\)-deformation of the Miura transformation. By a computation of Poisson brackets, it turns out that the Poisson structure of \(Z_h (\widehat{sl}_2)\) is closely related to a \(q\)-deformation of the classical Virasoro algebra. In the last part of the paper the results are generalized to the case of \(\widetilde{U}_h (\widehat{sl}_N)_{cr}\), and there is a conjecture that analogous results may be obtained in the general case of an arbitrary simple Lie algebra \({\mathfrak g}\), a central subalgebra \(Z_h(\widehat {\mathfrak g})\) of \(\widetilde{U}_h (\widehat{\mathfrak g})_{cr}\) and the Heisenberg-Poisson algebra \({\mathfrak H}_h ({\mathfrak g})\).