Phase operator problem and macroscopic extension of quantum mechanics

DOI10.1006/APHY.1997.5685MaRDI QIDQ1290411zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 21 September 1999

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

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9705034

hyperfinite dimensional vector space nonstandard Hilbert space nonstandard hull phase operator quantization quantum harmonic oscillator quantum state

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Other applications of nonstandard models (economics, physics, etc.) (03H10) Nonstandard functional analysis (46S20) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15) Commutation relations and statistics as related to quantum mechanics (general) (81S05) Phase-space methods including Wigner distributions, etc. applied to problems in quantum mechanics (81S30) Quantum optics (81V80)

Abstract: To find the Hermitian phase operatorof a single-mode electromagnetic field in quantum mechanics, the Schroedinger representation is extended to a larger Hilbert space augmented by states with infinite excitation by nonstandard analysis. The Hermitian phase operator is shown to exist on the extended Hilbert space. This operator is naturally considered as the controversial limit of the approximate phase operators on finite dimensional spaces proposed by Pegg and Barnett. The spectral measure of this operator is a Naimark extension of the optimal probability operator-valued measure for the phase parameter found by Helstrom. Eventually, the two promising approaches to the statistics of the phase in quantum mechanics is unified by means of the Hermitian phase operator in the macroscopic extension of the Schroedinger representation.

Review text

The paper is about a new quantization of the quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator. The usual (separable) Hilbert space \(\mathcal{H}\) is embedded in a larger (inseparable) Hilbert space \(\widehat{\mathcal{D}}\) and some of the Hermitian operators in \(\widehat{\mathcal{D}}\) are considered as ``new observables. The Hermitian operators in \(\mathcal{H}\) can be extended to Hermitian operators in \(\widehat{\mathcal{D}}\) and in this sense the ``old observables are also ``new observables. The main result claims that there exists a new observable \(\widehat{\phi}_\mathcal{D}\) on \(\widehat{\mathcal{D}}\) which has the properties of the phase operator, proposed as a hypothesis by P. Dirac. The importance of this result comes from the fact that Dirac's phase operator does not exist in \(\mathcal{H}\). The quantum statistics generated from \(\widehat{\phi}_\mathcal{D}\) and the states in \(\widehat{\mathcal{D}}\ominus\mathcal{H}\) coincide ``up to infinitesimals with the statistics which is expected to get from the classical limits of the quantum states in \(\mathcal{H}\) (if such classical limits exist). The new Hilbert space \(\widehat{\mathcal{D}}\) is constructed as a factor space of \(\mathcal{D}\), where \(\mathcal{D}\) is a hyperfinite-dimensional vector space between \(\mathcal{H}\) and \(^*\mathcal{H}\), where \(^*\mathcal{H}\) is a nonstandard extension of \(\mathcal{H}\) in the framework of A. Robinson's nonstandard analysis.

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