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arXiv:0911.0964

An Introduction To Geometric Prequantization

Geraci, Joseph

Published Nov 5, 2009• 4 citations

Abstract

Classical mechanics has a natural mathematical setting in symplectic geometry and it may be asked if the same is true for quantum mechanics. More precisely, is it possible to capture certain quantum idiosyncrasies within the symplectic framework of classical mechanics? Beginning with Dirac, the idea of quantizing a classical system involved associating the phase space variables with Hermitian operators which act on some Hilbert space, as well as associating the Poisson bracket on the phase space with the commutator for the operators. Mathematically the phase space is associated with some symplectic manifold $M$ and the non-degenerate 2-form $ω$, which comes with $M$. Geometric prequantization is a process by which one does this in a mathematically "rigorous" manner and we shall attempt to just introduce the methods here. We do this by exploring this contruction for ($\mathbb{R}^{2n}, \sum_{i=1}^n dp_i \wedge dq_i$) which avoids using complex line bundles in any non-trivial way. One should note however that the Hilbert space one obtains is in fact too "big", in the sense that it has too many functions in order to correspond with actual physically significant Hilbert spaces. Geometric quantization remedies this situation but it should be noted that not all manifolds are prequantizable. We shall not discuss either of these issues however.

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.0911.0964

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Classical mechanics has a natural mathematical setting in symplectic geometry and it may be asked if the same is true for quantum mechanics. More precisely, is it possible to capture certain quantum idiosyncrasies within the symplectic framework of classical mechanics? Beginning with Dirac, the idea of quantizing a classical system involved associating the phase space variables with Hermitian operators which act on some Hilbert space, as well as associating the Poisson bracket on the phase space with the commutator for the operators. Mathematically the phase space is associated with some symplectic manifold

M

and the non-degenerate 2-form

ω

, which comes with

M

. Geometric prequantization is a process by which one does this in a mathematically "rigorous" manner and we shall attempt to just introduce the methods here. We do this by exploring this contruction for (

\mathbb{R}^{2n}, \sum_{i=1}^n dp_i \wedge dq_i

) which avoids using complex line bundles in any non-trivial way. One should note however that the Hilbert space one obtains is in fact too "big", in the sense that it has too many functions in order to correspond with actual physically significant Hilbert spaces. Geometric quantization remedies this situation but it should be noted that not all manifolds are prequantizable. We shall not discuss either of these issues however.

Geometric quantization is an attempt at using the differential-geometric ingredients of classical phase spaces regarded as symplectic manifolds in order to define a corresponding quantum theory. Generally, the process of geometric quantization is applicable to other symplectic manifolds, not only cotangent spaces. The resulting formalism provides a way of looking at quantum theory that is distinct from conventional approaches to the subject, e.g., the Dirac bra-ket formalism. In particular, such familiar features as the quantization of spin, the canonical quantization of position and momentum, and the Schr\{o}dinger equation all emerge from geometric quantization. This paper serves as a review of the subject written in an informal style, often taking an example-based approach to exposition, and attempts to present the material without assuming the reader is an expert in differential geometry.

Geometric quantization is an attempt at using the differential-geometric ingredients of classical phase spaces regarded as symplectic manifolds in order to define a corresponding quantum theory. Generally, the process of geometric quantization is applicable to other symplectic manifolds, not only cotangent spaces. The resulting formalism provides a way of looking at quantum theory that is distinct from conventional approaches to the subject, e.g., the Dirac bra-ket formalism. In particular, such familiar features as the quantization of spin, the canonical quantization of position and momentum, and the Schrödinger equation all emerge from geometric quantization. This paper serves as a review of the subject written in an informal style, often taking an example-based approach to exposition, and attempts to present the material without assuming the reader is an expert in differential geometry.

We first recall a fact which is well-known among mathematical physicists although lesser-known among theoretical physicists that the standard quantum mechanics over a complex Hilbert space, is a Hamiltonian mechanics, regarding the Hilbert space as a linear real manifold equipped with its canonical symplectic form and restricting only to the expectation-value functions of Hermitian operators. Then in this framework, we reformulate the structure of quantum mechanics in the language of symplectic manifolds and avoid linear structure of Hilbert space in such a way that the results can be stated for an arbitrary symplectic manifold.

Introduction The main theme of this survey is the quantization of classical mechanical systems in terms of algebraic geometry. The aim is thus to relate questions of mathematics and theoretical physics. We first recall briefly the main problems and methods which turn us to study the new subject. Quantization itself is the main problem of theoretical physics. The need to introduce and develop it was dictated by the creators of quantum theory. According to the ‘Copenhagen philosophy’, the physical predictions of a quantum theory must be formulated in terms of classical concepts (the first sentence of Woodhouse; here we quote the beginning of this survey). Thus in addition to the usual structures (Hilbert space, unitary transformations, selfadjoint operators …, see, for example, Landau and Lifschitz) any reasonable quantum theory has to admit an appropriate passage to a classical limit under which quantum observables are transferred to their classical analogues. However, as Dirac pointed out at the beginning of the quantum age, the correspondence between quantum theory and classical theory should be based not just on numerical coincidences taking place in the limit h → ∞, but on an analogy between their mathematical structures. Classical theory does approximate the quantum theory, but it does more – it supplies a framework for some interpretation of quantum theory. Using this idea, we can in general understand a quantization procedure as a correspondence between classical and quantum theories. In this sense, quantization of the classical mechanical systems is a movement in one direction, while taking the quasiclassical limit goes in the opposite direction.

Expository notes which combine a historical survey of the development of quantum physics with a review of selected mathematical topics in quantization theory (addressed to students that are not complete novices in quantum mechanics). After recalling in the introduction the early stages of the quantum revolution, and recapitulating in Sect. 2.1 some basic notions of symplectic geometry, we survey in Sect. 2.2 the so called prequantization thus preparing the ground for an outline of geometric quantization (Sect. 2.3). In Sect. 3 we apply the general theory to the study of basic examples of quantization of Kaehler manifolds. In Sect. 4 we review the Weyl and Wigner maps and the work of Groenewold and Moyal that laid the foundations of quantum mechanics in phase space, ending with a brief survey of the modern development of deformation quantization. Sect. 5 provides a review of second quantization and its mathematical interpretation. We point out that the treatment of (nonrelativistic) bound states requires going beyond the neat mathematical formalization of the concept of second quantization. An appendix is devoted to Pascual Jordan, the least known among the creators of quantum mechanics and the chief architect of the "theory of quantized matter waves".