nLab
Poisson sigma-model

Contents

Idea

The Poisson σ-model is a 2-dimensional sigma-model quantum field theory whose target space is a Poisson Lie algebroid. This may be thought of as encoding the quantum mechanics of a string propagating on the phase space? of a system in classical mechanics.

In his solution of the problem of deformation quantization? Maxim Kontsevich showed that correlators for the 2-string interaction (the correlator on the worldsheet that is a disk with three marked points on its boundary) describe a product operation which is a deformation of the Poisson bracket on the target space.

The principal variant of the nonlinear Poisson sigma model is sometimes called Cattaneo-Felder model. The graphical expansion used in Kontsevich’s approach to the deformation quantization is explained via a Feynman diagram expansion in this model.

References

  • A. Cattaneo, G. Felder, Poisson sigma models and symplectic groupoids, (ed. N. P. Landsman, M. Pflaum, M. Schlichenmeier), Progress in Mathematics 198, 61–93 (Birkhäuser, 2001) math.SG/0003023.

  • A. Cattaneo, G. Felder, On the AKSZ formulation of the Poisson sigma model, Lett. Math. Phys. 56, 163–179 (2001) math.QA/0102108.

  • A. Cattaneo, G. Felder, Poisson sigma models and deformation quantization, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 16, 179–190 (2001) hep-th/0102208.

  • A. Cattaneo, G. Felder, A path integral approach to the Kontsevich quantization formula, Commun. Math. Phys. 212, 591–611 (2000) doi, math.QA/9902090.