We study a class of systems of functional equations closely related to various kinds of integrable statistical and quantum mechanical models. We call them the finite and infinite @math -systems according to the number of functions and equations. The finite Q-systems appear as the thermal equilibrium conditions (the Sutherland–Wu equation) for certain statistical mechanical systems. Some infinite Q-systems appear as the relations of the normalized characters of the KR modules of the Yangians and the quantum affine algebras. We give two types of power series formulae for the unique solution (resp. the unique canonical solution) for a finite (resp. infinite) Q-system. As an application, we reformulate the Kirillov–Reshetikhin conjecture on the multiplicities formula of the KR modules in terms of the canonical solutions of Q-systems.
We introduce a fermionic formula associated with any quantum affine algebra U q (X N (r) . Guided by the interplay between corner transfer matrix and the Bethe ansatz in solvable lattice models, we study several aspects related to representation theory, most crucially, the crystal basis theory. They include one-dimensional sums over both finite and semi-infinite paths, spinon character formulae, Lepowsky—Primc type conjectural formula for vacuum string functions, dilogarithm identities, Q-systems and their solution by characters of various classical subalgebras and so forth. The results expand [HKOTY1] including the twisted cases and more details on inhomogeneous paths consisting of non-perfect crystals. As a most intriguing example, certain inhomogeneous one-dimensional sums conjecturally give rise to branching functions of an integrable G 2 (1) -module related to the embedding G 2 (1) ↪ B 3 (1) ↪ D 4 1 . Fermionic formulae originate in the Bethe ansatz in solvable lattice models. They are specific expressions of some q-polynomials as sums of products of q-binomial coefficients. We consider the fermionic formulae associated with general non-twisted quantum affine algebra U_q(X^ (1) _n) and discuss several aspects related to representation theories and combinatorics. They include crystal base theory, one dimensional sums, spinon character formulae, Q-system and combinatorial completeness of the string hypothesis for arbitrary X_n.