Canonical maps and integrability in $T\bar T$ deformed 2d CFTs

We study $T\bar T$ deformations of 2d CFTs with periodic boundary conditions. We relate these systems to string models on $\mathbb{R}\times {S}^1\times{\cal M}$, where $\cal M$ is the target space of a 2d CFT. The string model in the light cone gauge is identified with the corresponding 2d CFT and in the static gauge it reproduces its $T\bar T$ deformed system. This relates the deformed system and the initial one by a worldsheet coordinate transformation, which becomes a time dependent canonical map in the Hamiltonian treatment. The deformed Hamiltonian defines the string energy and we express it in terms of the chiral Hamiltonians of the initial 2d CFT. This allows exact quantization of the deformed system, if the spectrum of the initial 2d CFT is known. The generalization to non-conformal 2d field theories is also discussed.