Geometry of the Madelung transform (Q2322726)

The Madelung transform is known to relate Schrödinger-type equations in quantum mechanics the Euler equations for barotropic-type fluids. In this paper the authors focus on the geometric aspects of Madelung's construction and prove that the Madelung transform possesses a number of surprising properties. They prove that the Madelung transform is a Kähler map (that is a symplectomorphism and an isometry) between the space of wave functions and the cotangent bundle to the density space equipped with the Fubini-Study metric and the Fisher-Rao information metric, respectively. They show that Fusca's momentum map property of the Madelung transform is a manifestation of the general approach via reduction for semi-direct product groups. Furthermore, the Hasimoto transform for the binormal equation turns out to be the 1D case of the Madelung transform, while its higher-dimensional version is related to the Willmore energy in binormal flows. This paper is organized as follows : Section 1 is an introduction to the subject. Section 2 deals with Madelung transform as symplectomorphism. In this section the authors show that the Madelung transform induces a symplectomorphism between the cotangent bundle of smooth probability densities and the projective space of smooth non-vanishing complex-valued wave functions. Section 3 deals with Madelung transform as an isometry of Kähler manifolds. In this section the authors prove that the Madelung transform is an isometry and a Kähler map between the lifted Fisher-Rao metric on the cotangent bundle \(T^*\mathrm{Dens}^s(M)\) (where \(M\) is a domain \(M\), typically a compact connected Riemannian manifold with a volume form) and the Kähler structure corresponding to the Fubini-Study metric on the infinite-dimensional projective space \(\mathbb{P}H^s(M, \mathbb{C})\). Section 4 deals with Madelung transform as a momentum map. In previous sections, the authors described the Madelung transform as a symplectomorphism from \(T^*\mathrm{Dens}^s(M)\) to \(\mathbb{P}H^s(M, \mathbb{C})\) which associates a wave function \(\psi=\sqrt{\rho}e^{i\theta/2}\) (modulo a phase factor \(e^{i\tau}\)) to a pair \((\rho,[\theta])\) consisting of a density \(\rho\) of unit mass and a function \(\theta\) (modulo an additive constant). Here, the authors start by outlining (following [\textit{D. Fusca}, J. Geom. Mech. 9, No. 2, 157--165 (2017; Zbl 1440.53095)]) another approach, which shows that it is natural to view the inverse Madelung transform as a momentum map from the space \(\mathbb{P}H^s(M, \mathbb{C})\) of wave functions \(\psi\) to the set of pairs \((\rho d\theta,\rho)\) viewed by an appendix entitled the functional-analytic setting.