Dualities and Discretizations of Integrable Quantum Field Theories from 4d Chern-Simons Theory

TL;DR

This paper explores the connection between 2d integrable quantum field theories and lattice models through 4d Chern-Simons theory, revealing new dualities, discretization methods, and anomaly-related bosonization dualities, with string theory embeddings.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic discretization approach for integrable models, uncovers new dualities among field theories, and analyzes anomaly inflow and bosonization in this framework.

Findings

Discretization of defects yields integrable lattice models.

New dualities between integrable field theories and lattice models.

Bosonization dualities derived from anomaly analysis.

Abstract

We elucidate the relationship between 2d integrable field theories and 2d integrable lattice models, in the framework of the 4d Chern-Simons theory. The 2d integrable field theory is realized by coupling the 4d theory to multiple 2d surface order defects, each of which is then discretized into 1d defects. We find that the resulting defects can be dualized into Wilson lines, so that the lattice of discretized defects realizes integrable lattice models. Our discretization procedure works systematically for a broad class of integrable models (including trigonometric and elliptic models), and uncovers a rich web of new dualities among integrable field theories. We also study the anomaly-inflow mechanism for the integrable models, which is required for the quantum integrability of field theories. By analyzing the anomalies of chiral defects, we derive a new set of bosonization dualities between generalizations of massless Thirring models and coupled Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) models. We study an embedding of our setup into string theory, where the thermodynamic limit of the lattice models is realized by polarizations of D-branes.