Canonical Quantization of the Liouville Theory, Quantum Group Structures, and Correlation Functions

We describe a self-consistent canonical quantization of Liouville theory in terms of canonical free fields. In order to keep the non-linear Liouville dynamics, we use the solution of the Liouville equation as a canonical transformation. This also defines a Liouville vertex operator. We show, in particular, that a canonical quantized conformal and local quantum Liouville theory has a quantum group structure, and we discuss correlation functions for non-critical strings.