In this paper we describe how relativistic field theories containing defects are equivalent to a class of boundary field theories. As a consequence previously derived results for boundaries can be directly applied to defects, these results include reduction formulas, the Coleman–Thun mechanism and Cutcosky rules. For integrable theories the defect crossing unitarity equation can be derived and defect operator found. For a generic purely transmitting impurity we use the boundary bootstrap method to obtain solutions of the defect Yang–Baxter equation. The groundstate energy on the strip with defects is also calculated.

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We derive the non-local conserved charges in the sine-Gordon model and affine Toda field theories on the half-line. They generate new kinds of symmetry algebras that are coideals of the usual quantum groups. We show how intertwiners of tensor product representations of these algebras lead to solutions of the reflection equation. We describe how this method for finding solutions to the reflection equation parallels the previously know method of using intertwiners of quantum groups to find solutions to the Yang-Baxter equation.

We describe an integrable system consisting of the sine-Gordon field, restricted to the half line, and coupled to a non-linear oscillator at the boundary. By extension of the coupling constant to imaginary values we also outline the equivalent system for the sinh-Gordon field. We show how Sklyanin's formalism can be applied to situations with dynamic boundary conditions, and illustrate the method with the derivation of our example system.

We consider the massive Klein-Gordon field on the half line with and without a Robin boundary potential. The field is coupled at the boundary to a harmonic oscillator. We solve the system classically and observe the existence of classical boundary bound states in some regions of the parameter space. The system is then quantized, the quantum reflection matrix and reflection cross section are calculated. Resonances and Ramsauer-Townsend effects are observed in the cross section. The pole structure of the reflection matrix is discussed.ag160@garfield.elte.hu