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arXiv:1509.00537

Volumes of orthogonal groups and unitary groups

Lin Zhang

Published Sep 2, 2015• 13 citations

Abstract

The matrix integral has many applications in diverse fields. This review article begins by presenting detailed key background knowledge about matrix integral. Then the volumes of orthogonal groups and unitary groups are computed, respectively. As a unification, we present Mcdonald's volume formula for a compact Lie group. With this volume formula, one can easily derives the volumes of orthogonal groups and unitary groups. Applications are also presented as well. Specifically, The volume of the set of mixed quantum states is computed by using the volume of unitary group. The volume of a metric ball in unitary group is also computed as well. There are no new results in this article, but only detailed and elementary proofs of existing results. The purpose of the article is pedagogical, and to collect in one place many, if not all, of the quantum information applications of the volumes of orthogonal and unitary groups.

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1509.00537

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The matrix integral has many applications in diverse fields. This review article begins by presenting detailed key background knowledge about matrix integral. Then the volumes of orthogonal groups and unitary groups are computed, respectively. As a unification, we present Mcdonald's volume formula for a compact Lie group. With this volume formula, one can easily derives the volumes of orthogonal groups and unitary groups. Applications are also presented as well. Specifically, The volume of the set of mixed quantum states is computed by using the volume of unitary group. The volume of a metric ball in unitary group is also computed as well. There are no new results in this article, but only detailed and elementary proofs of existing results. The purpose of the article is pedagogical, and to collect in one place many, if not all, of the quantum information applications of the volumes of orthogonal and unitary groups.

Applications of group theoretical methods in the path integral formalism of nonrelativistic quantum theory are considered. Analysis of the symmetry of the Lagrangian leads to the expansion of the short time propagator in matrix elements of unitary irreducible representations of the symmetry group. Identification of the coordinates with the group parameters transforms the path integral to integrals over the group manifold. The integration is performed using the orthogonality of the representations. Compact and noncompact rotation groups are considered, where the corresponding path integral is embedded in Euclidean and pseudo-Euclidean spaces, respectively. The unit sphere and unit hyperboloid may either be viewed as the group manifold itself or at least as a group quotient. In the first case Fourier analysis leads to an expansion in group characters. In the second case an expansion in zonal spherical functions is obtained. As examples the groups SO(n), SU(2), SO(n−1,1), and SU(1,1) are explicitly discussed. The path integral on SO(n+m) and SO(n,m) in bispherical coordinates is also treated.

Starting from square-integrable wave functions on a Lie group, we build an invertible Fourier transform mapping them on wave functions on the dual of the Lie algebra. This is a group-theoretic version of the map from position space to momentum space, with generally noncommuting momenta owing to the group structure. As a result, the multiplication of momentum-dependent functions involves star products, which makes the construction of noncommutative Fourier series much more involved than that of their commutative cousin. This is especially true when compact subgroups are present, in which case we carefully take into account quotients of the operator algebra, and the resulting normalization issues. We show that our formalism provides an isometry of Hilbert spaces, and use it to derive a noncommutative Poisson summation formula for any compact Lie group. This is a key preliminary for the computation of Wigner functions and path integrals for quantum systems on group manifolds.