Angular quantization of the sine-Gordon model at the free fermion point. (Q5929522)

The sine-Gordon model is a two-dimensional bosonic quantum field theory, which is equivalent to the massive Thirring model, a theory of Dirac fermions, through the technique of bosonization. At a certain value of the coupling constant, the latter is a free field theory, so in order to quantize the Sine-Gordon theory at this so-called free fermion point one in principle merely has to solve a free field theory. However, this is not as straightforward as it sounds because of the complicated transformation implicit in the bosonization technique. The authors approach this matter by what they call angular quantization. By this they mean that they represent the states and operators of the model associated with the total two-dimensional space-time in terms of data associated to the rigth Rindler wegde. It then turns out that the model can be described through the representation theory of a so-called ''scaling elliptic algebra'' that is closely associated to the affine \(sl_2\) Kac-Moody algebra. As the authors concede, it is far from clear how this helps in quantizing the model at generic values of the coupling constant. In fact, one gets the usual jungle of expressions involving special functions that seems typical of this area.