Quest for universal integrable models

Abstract

In this paper we discuss a universal integrable model, given by a sum of two Wess-Zumino-Witten-Novikov (WZWN) actions, corresponding to two different orbits of the coadjoint action of a loop group on its dual, and the Polyakov-Weigmann cocycle describing their interactions. This is an effective action for free fermions on a torus with nontrivial boundary conditions. It is universal in the sense that all other known integrable models can be derived as reductions of this model. Hence our motivation is to present an unified description of different integrable models. We present a proof of this universal action from the action of the trivial dynamical system on the cotangent bundles of the loop group. We also present some examples of reductions.