Noncommutative geometry and dynamical models on \(U(u(2))\) background (Q887217)

The article under review is a continuation and some case-study of a formulation of differential calculus proposed by the authors in earlier work in the twisted/deformed setting suitable for noncommutative geometry. One of the motivations for their approach comes from the lack of any analogue of partial derivatives in general in the popular formalism of noncommutative differential forms based on Hochschild or cyclic (co)homology or the Connes-de-Rham complex. In particular, the authors consider a deformed analogue of the Weyl algebra of the universal enveloping algebra \(U (u(2))\), where \(u(2)\) denotes the Lie algebra of the compact Lie group of \(2\times 2\) unitary matrices. This deformed noncommutative algebra \(W(U (u(2))_h)\) (where \(h\) is a formal parameter) is defined by a set of 8 generators \(t\), \(x\), \(y\), \(z\), \(\partial_t\), \(\partial_x\), \(\partial_x\), \(\partial_z\) satisfying a number of commutation relations. As the notations suggest, \(\partial_x\), \(\partial_y\), \(\partial_y\), \(\partial_t\) are thought of as the `quantum partial derivatives' w.r.t. the `quantum coordinate variables'. The relations involving the quantum coordinates alone are: \([x, y]=hz\), \([y,z]=hx\), \([z,x]=hy\), \([t,x]=[t,y]=[t,z]=0\). The quantum partial derivatives commute among themselves and there are 16 commutation relations among the quantum coordinates and the quantum partial derivatives, some of which are \([\partial_x,x]=[\partial_y,y]=[\partial_z,z]=[\partial_t,t]=\frac{h}{2}\partial_t+\frac{h}{2}1\), \([\partial_x,y]=\frac{h}{2}\partial_z\), \([\partial_t,x]=-\frac{h}{2}\partial_x\) etc. As physical applications, the authors also consider non-commutative versions of the Klein-Gordon equation and the Schrödinger equation for the hydrogen atom. To this end an extension of the algebra \(U (u(2))_h\) is defined by adding to it meromorphic functions in the so-called quantum radius and quantum time. It would be interesting to know how this approach is related or fits into the formalism of covariant differential calculus of Woronowicz, Majid and others. It is a bit surprising to see no reference to the vast literature on these topics (also early work by Manin and many others) in the bibliography of the paper.