arXiv · hep-th/9705183
Quantum Mechanically Induced Hopf Term in the O(3) Nonlinear Sigma Model
Abstract
The Hopf term in the $2 + 1$ dimensional O(3) nonlinear sigma model, which is known to be responsible for fractional spin and statistics, is re-examined from the viewpoint of quantization ambiguity. It is confirmed that the Hopf term can be understood as a term induced quantum mechanically, in precisely the same manner as the $θ$-term in QCD. We present a detailed analysis of the topological aspect of the model based on the adjoint orbit parametrization of the spin vectors, which is not only very useful in handling topological (soliton and/or Hopf) numbers, but also plays a crucial role in defining the Hopf term for configurations of nonvanishing soliton numbers. The Hopf term is seen to arise explicitly as a quantum effect which emerges when quantizing an $S^1$ degree of freedom hidden in the configuration space.
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Izumi Tsutsui, Shogo Tanimura, Hiroyuki Kobayashi. 1997-07-28. Quantum Mechanically Induced Hopf Term in the O(3) Nonlinear Sigma Model. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0550-3213(97)00759-1
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