Yangian Symmetry in Conformal Field Theory

Abstract

We show that the $SU(N)$, level-1 Wess-Zumino-Witten conformal field theory provides a natural realization of the Yangian $Y(sl_N)$ for $N\geq 3$. We also construct a hamiltonian $H_2$ which commutes with the Yangian generators and study its spectrum. Our results, which generalize work by Haldane et al.\ \cite{hhtbp}, provide the field theory extension of the algebraic structure of the $SU(N)$ Haldane-Shastry spin chains with $1/r^2$ exchange.