A few solvable two-dimensional quantum field theories (QFT)

Abstract

Abstract The chapter is devoted to several two-dimensional quantum field theories (QFT), whose properties can be determined by non-perturbative methods. The Schwinger model, a model of two-dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED) with massless fermions, illustrates the properties of confinement, spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, asymptotic freedom and anomalies, properties one also expects in particle physics from quantum chromodynamics. The equivalence between the massive Thirring model, a fermion model with current–current interaction, and the sine-Gordon model is derived, using the bozonisation technique. The bosonization technique, based on an identity for Cauchy determinants, establishes relations, specific to two dimensions, between fermion and boson local field theories. Several generalized Thirring model are also discussed. In the discussion of the O(N) non-linear σ-model, it has been noticed that the Abelian case N = 2 is special, because the renormalization group (RG) β-function vanishes in two dimensions. The corresponding O(2) invariant spin model is especially interesting: it provides an example of the celebrated Kosterlitz–Thouless (KT) phase transition and will be studied elsewhere. This chapter also provides the necessary technical background for such an investigation.