On the pseudo-manifold of quantum states (Q1979415)

This paper concerns the differential geometry of the state space of (mainly finite dimensional) quantum systems. As the authors claim in the abstract and in the introduction, their aim is to give a clear mathematical framework to the geometry of states in quantum mechanics. I am happy to say that they were quite successful in this regard: they took good care of providing all the geometrical and algebraic tools needed for this topic, accompanying each definition with a good reference. These tools were then deployed to prove many of the statements usually presented as folklore in the mathematical-physics literature. In the first section, after introducing the standard notions of states and density matrices for a (finite dimensional) C* algebra, the authors recall the theory of stratified spaces, with particular regard for manifolds stratified by the smooth action of a Lie group. In the second section the authors study the topology of the space of states of a finite dimensional C* algebra, showing thay it exhibits the topology of the disjoint union of a finite number of complex projective spaces. An important proposition proved in this section concerns the stratification of the join of two stratified spaces. The third section is a collection of examples that are meant to show the stratification by rank of the space of matrices induced by the adjoint action of the unitary group. In the fourth section the authors give two descriptions of the topological pseudo manifold of the states of a C* algebra of complex matrices, whose strata are smooth manifolds. It turns out that every stratum is the total space of a smooth bundle on an algebraic smooth variety, while a neighborhood of each stratum has the structure of a cone bundle over the stratum, which is contained in the total space of a smooth vector bundle on an algebraic smooth variety. Finally in the closing remarks, some possible future developments are presented. The topic of the paper is very interesting and the paper itself is very well written.