Quantum Spin Formulation of the Principal Chiral Model

We formulate the two-dimensional principal chiral model as a quantum spin model, replacing the classical fields by quantum operators acting in a Hilbert space, and introducing an additional, Euclidean time dimension. Using coherent state path integral techniques, we show that in the limit in which a large representation is chosen for the operators, the low energy excitations of the model describe a principal chiral model in three dimensions. By dimensional reduction, the two-dimensional principal chiral model of classical fields is recovered.