Drinfeld comultiplication and vertex operators

Abstract

For the current realization of the quantum affine algebras, Drinfeld gave a simple comultiplication of the quantum current operators. With this comultiplication, we study the related vertex operators for the case of $U_q(\hgtsl_n)$ and give an explicit bosonization of these new vertex operators. We use these vertex operators to construct the quantum current operators of $U_q(\hgtsl_n)$ and discuss its connection with quantum boson-fermion correspondence.