A symplectic approach to certain functional integrals and partition functions (Q5959630)

The author defines the Liouville functional on the set of functions on an infinite-dimensional symplectic manifold which are Hamiltonian with respect to a torus-action. It follows, by a theorem due to Duistermaat and Heckman, that in the case of finite-dimensional manifolds this functional is closely related to the integral over the Liouville measure. The author obtains several concrete results in the case that the symplectic manifold is given as a generic coadjoint orbit of a loop group. Namely, the Liouville functional gives the same result as usual integration with respect the to Wiener measure. The symplectic setup turns out to be natural for the calculation of the partition functions of certain quantum field theories. The author obtains the explicit expression of the partition function of the gauged Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) model on an elliptic curve in terms of the Liouville functional approach and closes with some remarks on a ``twisted'' WZW model and a measure theoretic interpretation of the calculations leading to the partition function of the WZW model.