Relating the quantum mechanics of discrete systems to standard canonical quantum mechanics

DOI10.1007/S10701-014-9788-YMaRDI QIDQ474841zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Gerard 't Hooft

Publication date 25 November 2014

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

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4926

zbMATH Keywords

canonical formalismsdeterministic quantum mechanicsedge stateselliptic theta functiontwisted boundary conditionsunitary mappings

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05)

Abstract: Discrete quantum mechanics is here defined to be a quantum theory of wave functions defined on integers P_i and Q_i, while canonical quantum mechanics is assumed to be based on wave functions on the real numbers, R^n. We study reversible mappings from the position operators q_i and their quantum canonical operators p_i of a canonical theory, onto the discrete, commuting operators Q_i and P_i. In this paper we are particularly interested in harmonic oscillators. In the discrete system, these turn into deterministic models, which is our motivation for this study. We regard the procedure worked out here as a "canonical formalism" for discrete dynamics, and as a stepping stone to handling discrete deterministic systems in a quantum formalism.

Review text

The article is motivated by the philosophical question whether one can derive the fundamental principles of physics in terms of models based on integers only. The author has proposed a formulation of quantum mechanics using operators having purely discrete, ineger-valued, spectra. He then explains why the `real' world appears to be based on real-valued position-momenta. The basic idea is rather simple but elegant. It comes from the fact that to every real number \(x\), we can uniquely associate a pair \(([x], x - [x])\) consisting of the integral part and the fractional part of \(x\). Thus, real-valued functions can be in some sense `decomposed' into functions on integers and on the unit interval. But identifying the unit interval with the circle (after some care about the boundary values), one can use Fourier transform to get functions on integers. This is how we can associate a pair of integers to a real number in an (almost) bijective fashion. The formulation begins with associating to the standard quantum mechanical position-momentum pair \((q, p)\) a similar operator-pair \((Q, P )\) with purely integer spectra, satisfying, for example, \[ q = Q + \eta P , \] where \(Q = [q]\) and \(P\) is an operator with integer-spectrum obtained from the fractional part of q via the Fourier transform. This naive prescription needs some further adjustments and modifications to take care of issues related to boundary values (in terms of the `edge-states' in the language of the paper) and to achive certain symmetry between position and momentum. The author discusses the example of harmonic oscillator in this framework.

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Cites work

• Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?
• Duality between a deterministic cellular automaton and a bosonic quantum field theory in \(1+1\) dimensions
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 108512 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 651709 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1465030 (Why is no real title available?)

Cited in

(7)

• On the foundations of superstring theory
• Canonical discretization. I: Discrete faces of (an)harmonic oscillators
• Bohmian mechanics with discrete operators
• Exact discrete analogs of canonical commutation and uncertainty relations
• Measure-preservation criteria for a certain class of 1-Lipschitz functions on \(\mathbb Z_p\) in Mahler's expansion
• Digital representation of continuous observables in Quantum Mechanics
• Reconditioning in discrete quantum field theory

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