DUALITY AND QUANTUM GROUPS

We show that the duality properties of Rational Conformal Field Theories follow from the defining relations and the representation theory of quantum groups. The fusion and braiding matrices are q-analogues of the 6j-symbols and the modular transformation matrices are obtained from the properties of the co-multiplication. We study in detail the Wess-Zumino-Witten models and the rational gaussian models as examples, but carry out the arguments in general. We point out the connections with the Chern-Simons approach. We give general arguments of why the general solution to the polynomial equations of Moore and Seiberg describing the duality properties of Rational Conformal Field Theories defines a Quantum Group acting on the space of conformal blocks. A direct connection between Rational Theories and knot invariants is also presented along the lines of Jones' original work. © 1990.