Weyl Modules for Classical and Quantum Affine algebras

Abstract

We define a family of universal finite-dimensional highest weight modules for affine Lie algebras, we call these Weyl modules. We conjecture that these are the classical limits of the irreducible finite--dimensional representations of the quantum affine algebras. We prove this conjecture in the case of affine sl_2. We establish a criterion for these modules to be irreducible and prove a factorization theorem for them in the general case.