Traces of intertwiners for quantum groups and difference equations. I (Q1586404)

The authors' aim is to establish a representation-theoretic interpretation of the quantum Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov-Bernard (qKZB) equations and to use this interpretation to study solutions of these equations. It is known that the KZB equations are satisfied by conformal blocks. This fact is interesting not only for itself but also because it allows non trivial properties of solutions, such as monodromy theorems, to be proven. In this paper, the authors' aim is to give a similar interpretation for the qKZB equations, which are actually \(q\)-deformations of the KZB equations. The main idea is naturally to consider quantum conformal block and traces of products of intertwining operators for quantum affine algebras. This work deals in fact only with a limiting case, but it is the beginning of a series of papers. This series is motivated by recent works on the qKZB equations and by the theory of quantum conformal blocks [see \textit{G. Felder}, Proc. Int. Congress Math., Zürich 1994, 1247-1255 (1995; Zbl 0852.17014) for instance].