Jacobians of chiral transformations and two - dimensional bosonization ∗

We formulate a complete path integral bosonization procedure for any fermionic theory in two dimensions. The method works equally well for massive and massless fermions, and is a generalization of an approach suggested earlier by Andrianov. The classical action of the bosons in the bosonized theory is identified with −i times the logarithm of the Jacobian of a local chiral transformation, with the boson fields as transformation parameters. Three examples, the Schwinger model, the massive Thirring model and massive non-Abelian bosonization, are worked out. PACS numbers: 11.10.Kk; 11.15.Tk; 11.30.Rd