The Fermion-Boson Mapping in Three Dimensional Quantum Field Theory

We discuss bosonization in three dimensions by establishing a connection between the massive Thirring model and the Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory. We show, to lowest order in inverse fermion mass, the identity between the corresponding partition functions; from this, a bosonization identity for the fermion current, valid for length scales long compared with the Compton wavelength of the fermion, is inferred. We present a non-local operator in the Thirring model which exhibits fractional statistics.