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Bosonisation in one-dimensional fermion systems and applications to spin chains

Camilo Andrés Moreno Alfaro

Published Jul 7, 2026• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Bosonisation is a technique for studying one-dimensional fermion systems by the means of transforming them to a boson system. S. Coleman showed that the correlation functions for the Sine Gordon field, a massless boson with a cosine interaction term, coincide with those of the massive Thirring model, which is a Dirac fermion with self-interactions. An explicit map can be found between these two systems, and it can in fact be generalised to an entire class of fermions in which the boson-fermion correspondence is a well-defined operator equality in Fock space. More generally, it is a widely used technique to transform a model into another whose nature simplifies the solution or allows for obtaining more information that appears more clearly in the new representation. Another example is the Jordan Wigner transformation, which associates quantum spin chains to one-dimensional fermions. Some aspects about the statistical properties of the chain can be inferred from the fermionic representation, and more properties can be studied by applying bosonisation and examine the system in this new representation.

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Bosonisation is a technique for studying one-dimensional fermion systems by the means of transforming them to a boson system. S. Coleman showed that the correlation functions for the Sine Gordon field, a massless boson with a cosine interaction term, coincide with those of the massive Thirring model, which is a Dirac fermion with self-interactions. An explicit map can be found between these two systems, and it can in fact be generalised to an entire class of fermions in which the boson-fermion correspondence is a well-defined operator equality in Fock space. More generally, it is a widely used technique to transform a model into another whose nature simplifies the solution or allows for obtaining more information that appears more clearly in the new representation. Another example is the Jordan Wigner transformation, which associates quantum spin chains to one-dimensional fermions. Some aspects about the statistical properties of the chain can be inferred from the fermionic representation, and more properties can be studied by applying bosonisation and examine the system in this new representation.
Chapter 31 discussed the generic O(N) non-linear σ-model. We have noticed that the abelian case N = 2 is special because the RG β-function vanishes in two dimensions. The corresponding O(2) invariant spin model is specially interesting: it provides an example of the celebrated Kosterlitz–Thouless phase transition and will be examined in Chapter 33. However, a thorough discussion of this model requires a new technique: we have to establish relations, special to two dimensions, between fermion and boson local field theories, by a method called bosonization. This chapter illustrates the derivation involves several steps with the help of various other two-dimensional models which are physically interesting in their own right. It first studies the free massless boson and fermion fields. It evaluates the determinant of the covariant fermion derivative in the presence of an external gauge field. The result is at the basis of the bosonization technique. The chapter then discusses the sine–Gordon (SG) model. It solves the Schwinger model, QED with massless fermions. Finally, it demonstrates the equivalence between the SG model and two fermion models with current-current interaction: the Thirring model and another model with two species of fermions.
This chapter explains bosonization, a useful technique for describing the low-energy properties of one-dimensional systems. Bosonization is introduced by presenting a model on which this method is essentially exact. This allows for the derivation of precise formulas that can be used for other models as well. Bosons are mapped with fermions and the effect of the interactions is examined. A one-dimensional system with spin is also discussed, and renormalization equations for sine-Gordon Hamiltonians are presented and analyzed. Furthermore, the generic phase diagram of a one-dimensional chain is obtained.
It is well known that the noninteracting Majorana chain is dual to the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model, either through the Jordan–Wigner transformation or by gauging fermion parity. In this correspondence, the minimal translation of the Majorana chain maps to the celebrated Kramers–Wannier (KW) duality of the spin model, with the critical point mapped to the self-dual point. In this work, we generalize this mapping to two and higher dimensions by constructing a unitary equivalence between the parity-gauged fermionic system and a spin system defined on arbitrary polyhedral decompositions of space. Imposing the flatness condition on the gauge field yields a bosonization duality between the original (ungauged) fermionic system and a gauged spin system obeying a Gauss law. The dependence of the Gauss law in the spin system on the Kasteleyn orientation (and the discrete spin structure) of the fermionic system is made explicit. Applying this bosonization to one or two copies of Majorana fermions on translationally invariant lattices, we derive higher-dimensional analogs of KW (self-) dualities in spin systems arising from fermionic minimal translations. The KW (self-) dualities are non-invertible due to projections onto eigenspaces of higher-form symmetries in the associated symmetry operators. The bosonization framework we present is intuitive, general, and systematic, encompassing other known exact bosonization methods while offering a novel approach to establish new connections between fermionic and spin systems in arbitrary dimensions.
The well-known Jordan-Wigner transformation maps an arbitrary system of fermions on a one-dimensional lattice to a system of spins. An essential property of this transformation is that it preserves the locality of observables. This transformation has been recently extended to two-dimensional lattices, where it maps an arbitrary system of fermions to a gauge theory, with locality preserved. Here, the authors construct a bosonization map for arbitrary systems of fermions in three dimensions. As an application, the authors design a model of interacting spins on a cubic lattice, which is exactly soluble and is equivalent to a tight-binding model of free fermions with Dirac points.
The Jordan-Wigner transformation permits one to convert spin 1/2 operators into spinless fermion ones, or vice versa. In some cases, it transforms an interacting spin Hamiltonian into a noninteracting fermionic one, which is exactly solved at the mean-field level. Even when the resulting fermionic Hamiltonian is interacting, its mean-field solution can provide surprisingly accurate energies and correlation functions. Jordan-Wigner is, however, only one possible means of interconverting spin and fermionic degrees of freedom. Here, we apply several such techniques to the XXZ and J1-J2 Heisenberg models, as well as to the pairing or reduced Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer Hamiltonian, with the aim of discovering which of these mappings is most useful in applying fermionic mean-field theory to the study of spin Hamiltonians.