Zero modes' fusion ring and braid group representations for the extended chiral su(2) WZNW model

The zero modes' Fock space for the extended chiral $su(2)$ WZNW model gives room to a realization of the Grothendieck fusion ring of representations of the restricted $U_q sl(2)$ quantum universal enveloping algebra (QUEA) at an even ($2h$-th) root of unity, and of its extension by the Lusztig operators. It is shown that expressing the Drinfeld images of canonical characters in terms of Chebyshev polynomials of the Casimir invariant $C$ allows a streamlined derivation of the characteristic equation of $C$ from the defining relations of the restricted QUEA. The properties of the fusion ring of the Lusztig's extension of the QUEA in the zero modes' Fock space are related to the braiding properties of correlation functions of primary fields of the extended $su(2)_{h-2}$ current algebra model.