This book contains the proceedings of two international conferences: a satellite meeting of the IUPAP Statphys-19 Conference and the Seventh Nankai Workshop, held in Tianjin, China in August 1995. The central theme of the two conferences, which drew participants from 18 countries, was the Yang-Baxter equation and its development and applications. With topics ranging from quantum groups, vertex and spin models, to applications in condensed matter physics, this book reflects the current research interest of integrable systems in statistical mechanics.

This volume will be the first reference book devoted specially to the Yang-Baxter equation. The subject relates to broad areas including solvable models in statistical mechanics, factorized S matrices, quantum inverse scattering method, quantum groups, knot theory and conformal field theory. The articles assembled here cover major works from the pioneering papers to classical Yang-Baxter equation, its quantization, variety of solutions, constructions and recent generalizations to higher genus solutions.

This text is devoted to mathematical structures arising in conformal field theory and the q-deformations. The authors give a self-contained exposition of the theory of Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations and related topics. No previous knowledge of physics is required. The text is suitable for a one-semester graduate course and is intended for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in mathematical physics.