Drinfeld comultiplication and vertex operators (Q1364344)

Besides the usual comultiplication for quantum groups, for quantum affine algebras V. G. Drinfeld gave another comultiplication based on the current formulation. The authors prove that \(U_q(\widehat{\mathfrak{sl}}_n)\) has a Hopf algebra structure given by Drinfeld's comultiplication formulas. By using Drinfeld comultiplication and the Frenkel-Jing construction of level 1 representations of \(U_q (\widehat{\mathfrak{sl}}_n) \) the authors study the related vertex operators (intertwiners) and give an explicit bosonization of these new vertex operators. The authors use these vertex operators to construct the quantum current operators of \(U_q (\widehat{\mathfrak{sl}}_n) \) and discuss its connection with quantum boson-fermion correspondence.