A unified framework for the Kondo problem and for an impurity in a Luttinger liquid

We develop a unified theoretical framework for the anisotropic Kondo model and the boundary sine-Gordon model. They are both boundary integrable quantum field theories with a quantum-group spin at the boundary which takes values, respectively, in standard or cyclic representations of the quantum group SU(2)(q). This unification is powerful, and allows us to find new results for both models. For the anisotropic Kondo problem, we find exact expressions (in the presence of a magnetic field) for all the coefficients in the Anderson-Yuval perturbative expansion. Our expressions hold initially in the very anisotropic regime, but we show how to continue them beyond the Toulouse point all the way to the isotropic point using an analog of dimensional regularization. The analytic structure is transparent, involving only simple poles which we determine exactly, together with their residues. For the boundary sine-Gordon model, which describes an impurity in a Luttinger liquid, we find the nonequilibrium conductance for all values of the Luttinger coupling. This is an intricate computation because the voltage operator and the boundary scattering do not commute with each other.