Phase space quantum mechanics

DOI10.1016/J.AOP.2011.09.006MaRDI QIDQ765765zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 22 March 2012

Published in Annals of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1009.0150

deformation quantization Moyal product quantum mechanics star products Wigner function

Deformation quantization, star products (53D55) Geometry and quantization, symplectic methods (81S10) Phase-space methods including Wigner distributions, etc. applied to problems in quantum mechanics (81S30)

Abstract: The paper develop the alternative formulation of quantum mechanics known as the phase space quantum mechanics or deformation quantization. It is shown that the quantization naturally arises as an appropriate deformation of the classical Hamiltonian mechanics. More precisely, the deformation of the point-wise product of observables to an appropriate noncommutative

s t a r

-product and the deformation of the Poisson bracket to an appropriate Lie bracket is the key element in introducing the quantization of classical Hamiltonian systems. The considered class of deformations and the corresponding

s t a r

-products contains as a special cases all deformations which can be found in the literature devoted to the subject of the phase space quantum mechanics. Fundamental properties of

s t a r

-products of observables, associated with the considered deformations are presented as well. Moreover, a space of states containing all admissible states is introduced, where the admissible states are appropriate pseudo-probability distributions defined on the phase space. It is proved that the space of states is endowed with a structure of a Hilbert algebra with respect to the

s t a r

-multiplication. The most important result of the paper shows that developed formalism is more fundamental then the axiomatic ordinary quantum mechanics which appears in the presented approach as the intrinsic element of the general formalism. The equivalence of two formulations of quantum mechanics is proved by observing that the Wigner-Moyal transform has all properties of the tensor product. This observation allows writing many previous results found in the literature in a transparent way, from which the equivalence of the two formulations of quantum mechanics follows naturally.

Review text

The aim of this paper is to present in a systematic way the phase space quantum mechanics in a canonical regime as a natural deformation of classical Hamiltonian mechanics for a general class of gauge equivalent deformations by following the ideas introduced in the so-called paper [\textit{F. Bayen, M. Flato, C. Frønsdal, A. Lichnerowicz} and \textit{D. Sternheimer}, Ann. Phys. 111, 61--110 (1978; Zbl 0377.53024)]. More precisely, the deformation of the point-wise product of observables to an appropriate noncommutative \(\star\)-product and the deformation of the Poisson bracket to an appropriate Lie bracket are the key elements in introducing the quantization of classical Hamiltonian systems. The formalism of the phase space quantum mechanics is presented in a very systematic way for the case of any smooth Hamiltonian function and for a very wide class of deformations. The considered class of deformations and the corresponding products contains as a special case all deformations which can be found in the literature devoted to the subject of the phase space quantum mechanics. Fundamental properties of \(\star\)-products of observables, associated with the considered deformations are presented as well. Moreover, a space of states containing all admissible states is introduced, where the admissible states are appropriate pseudo-probability distributions defined on the phase space. It is proved that the space of states is endowed with a structure of a Hilbert algebra with respect to the \(\star\)-multiplication. The most important result of the paper shows that developed formalism is more fundamental than the axiomatic ordinary quantum mechanics which appears in the presented approach as the intrinsic element of the general formalism. The equivalence of two formulations of quantum mechanics is proved by observing that the Wigner-Moyal transform has all properties of the tensor product. This observation allows writing many previous results found in the literature in a transparent way, from which the equivalence of the two formulations of quantum mechanics follows naturally. In addition, examples of a free particle and a simple harmonic oscillator illustrating the formalism of the deformation quantization and its classical limit are given.

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