Wigner measures in noncommutative quantum mechanics (Q707592)

The authors are interested to study distributional evaluations of quantum observables in noncommutative quantum mechanics (called Wigner measures for noncommutative quantum mechanics). In this paper noncommutative quantum mechanical systems are identified with the following noncommutative algebras, (extended Heisenberg algebras): \[ [\hat z_\alpha,\hat z_\beta]= i\hbar\omega_{\alpha\beta},\quad \alpha,\beta=1,\dots,2d,\tag{\(\clubsuit\)} \] where \(\hat z=(\hat q,\hat p)\) stand for the physical position and momentum variables, \((\omega_{\alpha\beta})\) are \(2d\times 2d\) constant real matrices. The authors build a mapping \(W:\widehat{{\mathcal I}}'\to \widehat{{\mathcal I}}(\mathbb R^{2d})'\) extending to this noncommutative framework the corresponding Weyl-Wigner transform for the standard Heisenberg algebra. Here \(\widehat{{\mathcal I}}(\mathbb R^{2d})'\) denotes the dual of the space \(\widehat{{\mathcal I}}(\mathbb R^{2d})\) of suitable complex valued functions on \(\mathbb R^{2d}\) and \(\widehat{{\mathcal I}}'\) is a suitable class set of linear operators. In particular, they obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for a phase-space function to be a noncommutative Wigner measure, for a Gaussian to be a noncommutative Wigner measure, and derive certain properties of the marginal distributions which are not shared by ordinary Wigner measures. Moreover, they derive the Robertson-Schrödinger uncertainly principle. Finally, they show explicitly how the set of noncommutative Wigner measures relates to the sets of Liouville and (commutative) Wigner measures. The paper after the Introduction, splits into three more sections, and an appendix. The second one concerns the Weyl-Wigner formulation of quantum mechanics. The third one concerns the Weyl-Wigner formulation of noncommutative quantum mechanics. The fourth one concerns the properties of noncommutative Wigner measures in two dimensions, and the fifth one is the Appendix. Remark. As in this paper a noncommutative quantum mechanical system is identified with the so-called extended Heisenberg algebra (\(\clubsuit\)), it appears that such microscopic systems can be encoded by a rigid noncommutative algebra. Really this could happen in particular cases only, but in general the starting point must be a noncommutative (nonlinear) differential equation. There quantum distributional versions can be implemented. (See works on this subject by the reviewer of this paper.)