From Quantum B\"acklund Transforms to Topological Quantum Field Theory

We derive the quantum analogue of a B\"acklund transformation for the quantised Ablowitz-Ladik chain, a space discretisation of the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. The quantisation of the Ablowitz-Ladik chain leads to the $q$-boson model. Using a previous construction of Baxter's Q-operator for this model by the author, a set of functional relations is obtained which matches the relations of a one-variable classical B\"acklund transform to all orders in $\hbar$. We construct also a second Q-operator and show that it is closely related to the inverse of the first. The multi-B\"acklund transforms generated from the Q-operator define the fusion matrices of a 2D TQFT and we derive a linear system for the solution to the quantum B\"acklund relations in terms of the TQFT fusion coefficients.