Born-Jordan pseudodifferential operators and the Dirac correspondence: beyond the Groenewold-van Hove theorem (Q1744803)

Born-Jordan operators \( \text{Op}_{BJ} (a) \) are, by definition, the average \[ \text{Op}_{BJ} (a) = \int_0 ^1 \text{Op}_{\tau} (a) d \tau, \] of the Shubin operators \[ \text{Op}_\tau (a) u(x) = (2\pi)^{-n} \int e^{i \langle x-y, \xi \rangle} a((1-\tau) x + \tau y) u(y) dy d\xi, \;\;\; u \in \mathcal{S} ( \mathbb{R}^n), \;\; \tau \in \mathbb{R}, \] and \( a \in \mathcal{S} ( \mathbb{R}^n)\) is the symbol associated to the operator \( \text{Op}_{\tau} \). Such correspondences between symbols \(a\) and operators \( \text{Op} \) are known as quantization procedures. The desirable properties of a correspondence \( a \mapsto \text{Op} \) are given by \[ \text{Op} (f \otimes 1) u = f u, \;\;\; \text{Op} (1 \otimes g) u = \mathcal{F}^{-1} (g \mathcal{F} u), \] when \( a(x,\xi) = f(x) \) and \( a(x,\xi) =g(\xi) \). In addition, Dirac proposed that a quantization rule should also satisfy \[ [\text{Op} (a), \text{Op} (b)] = i \text{Op} (\{ a,b\}), \] where \([ \cdot, \cdot ]\) and \(\{ \cdot, \cdot \} \) are the commutator and the Poisson bracket, respectively. The authors give an exposition of such properties, also in the context of pseudodifferential operators, and explain the results of Groenewold and van Hove according to which it is impossible to meet all the desirable properties of a quantization procedure. In the present article they actually show that this obstruction can be bypassed when the symbols are of the following form: \[ a(x,\xi) = f(x) + g(\xi), \;\;\; \] and when \( \text{Op} = \text{Op}_{BJ}.\) The converse result is proved as well: \(\text{Op}_{BJ}\) is the only pseudodifferential quantization satisfying \( [\text{Op} (a), \text{Op} (b)] = i \text{Op} (\{ a,b\}),\) at least when \( a(x,\xi) = f(x) + g(\xi).\) Here above, \(f\) and \(g\) are smooth functions allowed to grow at most polynomially, together with their derivatives.