General Construction of Time-Dependent Integrable Chiral Field Theories

Abstract

We develop a general procedure for constructing time-dependent integrable chiral field theories from autonomous unitary difference-form $S$-matrices satisfying the Yang-Baxter equation. Spectral parameters are transported along the free right- and left-moving characteristics, defining a map from physical spacetime to spectral space on which the two-body scattering data are evaluated. Requiring spatially homogeneous right-left scattering forces the characteristic map to be affine. The inverse Cayley transform then determines the local contact interaction, while evaluation along the affine spectral trajectory fixes its time dependence. Thus, the nonautonomous interaction is determined by the autonomous scattering data together with chiral kinematics and spatial homogeneity, rather than being introduced independently. The Yang--Baxter equation supplies the factorized many-body transport, and on a spatial circle periodicity leads to quantum Knizhnik--Zamolodchikov (qKZ) equations whose compatibility defines a flat discrete transport in spectral space. Pulling the corresponding spectral-space amplitudes back to physical coordinates gives the time-dependent many-body wavefunctions. Rational $SU(N)$, trigonometric $U_q(\widehat{\mathfrak{sl}}_2)$, and rational $O(N)$ scattering illustrate how the same mechanism generates distinct nonautonomous interactions. The resulting framework gives a geometric route from autonomous factorized scattering data to time-dependent integrable field theories.