The Moyal representation of quantum mechanics and special function theory (Q915918)

In the paper under review it is shown that the phase-space formulation of quantum mechanics is a rich source of special function identities. The Moyal formalism is reviewed for two phase spaces: the real plane and the sphere; and the phase-space approach is used to derive identities for Airy, Laguerre, Kummer, the theta functions and for SU(2) rotation elements, several of which are new. Recently, the theta identities have been related to optical neural networks (\textit{W. Schempp}: Holomorphic image coding and neurocomputer architectures. In: Recent advances in Fourier analysis and its applications, J. S. Byrnes, J. F. Byrnes, Editors, 507-559. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht-Boston-London 1990) and \textit{E. Elizalde} and \textit{A. Romeo} (Theta function identities from optical neural networks. Manuscript, to appear) have written a REDUCE program for an efficient evaluation of the theta identities.