Geometric quantization and the generalized Segal-Bargmann transform for Lie groups of compact type (Q1598125)

For a connected Lie group \(K\) of compact type, there is a natural identification between the cotangent bundle \(T^*K\) and the complexification \(K_C\) of \(K\). The identifying diffeomorphism of \(T^*K\) and \(K_C\) carries the complex structure of \(K_C\) to a complex structure on \(T^*K\) which is compatible with the symplectic structure on \(T^*K\). Then \(T^*K\) becomes a Kähler manifold. For instance, \(K = R^n\) is a connected Lie group of compact type, \(T^*(R^n) = R^{2n} = C^n\) and the complex structures define Kähler polarizations on \(R^{2n} = T^*(R^n)\). With the Haar measure \(dx\) on \(K\), one can identify the vertically polarized Hilbert space of \(T^*K\) with \(L^2(K, dx)\). The vertically polarized Hilbert space is independent of the choice of measures on \(K\), and it can be naturally described as space of ``half-forms'' which plays a crucial role in the paper under review. This has been explicitly carried out for \(R^n = K\) in section 5, and the vertically polarized Hilbert space is the space of polarized sections \(s\) of a trivial complex line bundle \(L = T^*(R^n) \times C\) multiplied with a square root \(\delta_2\) of the canonical bundle. The Kähler polarized Hilbert space over \(T^*K \cong K_C\) is the space of square-integrable Kähler polarized sections of \(L\) which can be identified with the space \({\mathcal H}L^2(K_C, e^{-|Y |^2/h}\varepsilon)\) of holomorphic functions that are square-integrable with respect to the Liouville volume measure \(\varepsilon\). Note that \(e^{-|Y|^2/h}\varepsilon\) is the \(K\)-invariant heat kernel measure \(v_h\) on \(K_C\). The main results of the paper under review are (1) for elements of the half-forms corrected Kähler polarized Hilbert space, \({\mathcal H}L^2(K_C, v_h)\) is naturally identified with the generalized Segal-Bargmann space and is identified with the vertically polarized Hilbert space \(L^2(K, dx)\) by Theorem 2.4; (2) there exists a unique bounded linear operator from \(L^2(K, dx)\) to \({\mathcal H}L^2(K_C, v_h)\), and the bounded linear operator is the generalized Segal-Bargmann transformation, up to a constant (becomes unitary) by Theorem 2.6. The unitarity and heat kernel are interesting ingredients involved in the geometric quantization. The author works out explicitly the \(R^n\) case in section 5, and indicates that the general case of connected Lie groups of compact type follows in the same line of proofs in section 2. The commutativity between quantization and symplectic reduction is studied in section 3. Section 4 addresses the partial explanation of the occurrence of the heat kernel. Section 6 and 7 are appendixes for Lie groups of compact type and some calculations on the constant. It is essential that the half-form correction be included when using the Kähler polarization of \(T^*K\).