Higgs Bundles, Gauge Theories and Quantum Groups

Abstract

The appearance of the Bethe Ansatz equation for the Nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation in the equivariant integration over the moduli space of Higgs bundles is revisited. We argue that the wave functions of the corresponding two-dimensional topological U(N) gauge theory reproduce quantum wave functions of the Nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation in the $N$-particle sector. This implies the full equivalence between the above gauge theory and the $N$-particle sub-sector of the quantum theory of Nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation. This also implies the explicit correspondence between the gauge theory and the representation theory of degenerate double affine Hecke algebra. We propose similar construction based on the $G/G$ gauged WZW model leading to the representation theory of the double affine Hecke algebra. The relation with the Nahm transform and the geometric Langlands correspondence is briefly discussed.