FROM DEFECTS TO BOUNDARIES

In this paper we describe how relativistic field theories containing defects are equivalent to a class of boundary field theories. As a consequence previously derived results for boundaries can be directly applied to defects, these results include reduction formulas, the Coleman–Thun mechanism and Cutcosky rules. For integrable theories the defect crossing unitarity equation can be derived and defect operator found. For a generic purely transmitting impurity we use the boundary bootstrap method to obtain solutions of the defect Yang–Baxter equation. The groundstate energy on the strip with defects is also calculated.