Abstract
A lagrangian approach is proposed and developed to study defects within affine Toda field theories. In particular, a suitable Lax pair is constructed together with examples of conserved charges. It is found that only those models based on ar(1) data appear to allow defects preserving integrability. Surprisingly, despite the explicit breaking of Lorentz and translation invariance, modified forms of both energy and momentum are conserved. Some, but apparently not all, of the higher spin conserved charges are also preserved after the addition of contributions from the defect. This fact is illustrated by noting how defects may preserve a modified form of just one of the spin 2 or spin -2 charges but not both of them.
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