The mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics is derived or “reconstructed” from more basic considerations of the probability theory and information geometry. The starting point is the recognition that probabilities are central to QM; the formalism of QM is derived as a particular kind of flow on a finite dimensional statistical manifold—a simplex. The cotangent bundle associated to the simplex has a natural symplectic structure and it inherits its own natural metric structure from the information geometry of the underlying simplex. We seek flows that preserve (in the sense of vanishing Lie derivatives) both the symplectic structure (a Hamilton flow) and the metric structure (a Killing flow). The result is a formalism in which the Fubini–Study metric, the linearity of the Schrödinger equation, the emergence of complex numbers, Hilbert spaces and the Born rule are derived rather than postulated.
The mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics is derived or “reconstructed” from more basic considerations of the probability theory and information geometry. The starting point is the recognition that probabilities are central to QM; the formalism of QM is derived as a particular kind of flow on a finite dimensional statistical manifold—a simplex. The cotangent bundle associated to the simplex has a natural symplectic structure and it inherits its own natural metric structure from the information geometry of the underlying simplex. We seek flows that preserve (in the sense of vanishing Lie derivatives) both the symplectic structure (a Hamilton flow) and the metric structure (a Killing flow). The result is a formalism in which the Fubini–Study metric, the linearity of the Schrödinger equation, the emergence of complex numbers, Hilbert spaces and the Born rule are derived rather than postulated.
The state space of a quantum mechanical system is a complex projective space, the space of rays in the associated Hilbert space. The state space comes equipped with a natural Riemannian metric (the Fubini-Study metric) and a compatible symplectic structure. The operations of ordinary quantum mechanics can thus be reinterpreted in the language of differential geometry. It is interesting in this spirit to scrutinize the probabilistic assumptions that are brought in at various stages in the analysis of quantum dynamics, particularly in connection with state vector reduction. A promising approach to understanding reduction, studied recently by a number of authors, involves the use of nonlinear stochastic dynamics to modify the ordinary linear Schrodinger evolution. Here we use stochastic differential geometry to give a systematic geometric formulation for such stochastic models of state vector collapse. In this picture, the conventional Schrodinger evolution, which corresponds to the unitary flow associated with a Killing vector of the Fubini-Study metric, is replaced by a more general stochastic flow on the state manifold. In the simplest example of such a flow, the volatility term in the stochastic differential equation for the state trajectory is proportional to the gradient of the expectation of the Hamiltonian. The conservation of energy is represented by the requirement that the actual process followed by the expectation of the Hamiltonian, as the state evolves, should be a martingale. This requirement implies the existence of a nonlinear term in the drift vector of the state process, which is always oriented opposite to the direction of increasing energy uncertainty. As a consequence, the state vector necessarily collapses to an energy eigenstate, and a martingale argument can be used to show that the probability of collapse to a given eigenstate, from any particular initial state, is, in fact, given by precisely the usual quantum mechanical probability.
This work presents a reconstruction of quantum mechanics in which Schrödinger-type dynamics emerges from reversible probabilistic evolution rather than being postulated. Starting from a normalized probability density, we impose reversible probability dynamics, Fisher information geometry, and classical correspondence. These compatibility conditions yield coupled real equations equivalent to the continuity equation and the Hamilton–Jacobi equation with an additional information curvature (quantum potential) term. By combining density and phase into a complex amplitude, the Schrödinger equation appears as a compact encoding of reversible statistical flow. The result is mathematically equivalent to the Madelung hydrodynamic formulation and structurally connected to Bohmian mechanics, but derived without assuming Hilbert space, operator axioms, or measurement postulates. The work can therefore be viewed as an information-geometric derivation of quantum dynamics: quantum theory arises as the unique consistent representation of reversible probability flow. Keywords: quantum foundations, quantum reconstruction, emergent quantum mechanics, derivation of the Schrödinger equation, information geometry, Fisher information, Hamilton–Jacobi theory, Madelung formulation, Bohmian mechanics, reversible probability dynamics
Abstract Our purpose here is to draw attention to an interesting relationship that can be shown to hold between (a) information geometry, and (b) quantum geometry. By ‘information geometry’, we mean the natural geometry associated with families of probability distributions. This is a subject that goes back more than half a century to the pioneering work of Rao (1945), who showed that the Fisher information matrix associated with a parametrised family of probability dis tributions gives rise to a natural Riemannian metric on the parameter space. This then allows one to speak in a precise way of the ‘distance’ between two probability distributions, an idea that turns out to be useful in problems of statistical inference. An extensive literature has thus developed, following this line of enquiry, on applications of differential geometry to statistics (see, e.g., Amari (1985), Barndorff-Nielsen et al. (1986), Murray and Rice (1993)). By ‘quantum geometry’, on the other hand, we mean the geometry of the manifold of states associated with a given quantum mechanical system. In particular, we consider the manifold of ‘pure’ states associated with a given complex Hilbert space. This is the space of ‘rays’ through the origin in the Hilbert space, which has the structure of a complex projective space. It is known that the usual rules of quantum mechanics allow one to construct a natural metric on this space, namely the Fubini-Study metric, the specification of which is equivalent to all the familiar structure associated with ordinary quantum mechanics.
We consider the space of probabilities {P(x)}, where the x are coordinates of a configuration space. Under the action of the translation group, P(x) →P(x + θ), there is a natural metric over the parameters θ given by the Fisher-Rao metric. This metric induces a metric over the space of probabilities. Our next step is to set the probabilities in motion. To do this, we introduce a canonically conjugate field S and a symplectic structure; this gives us Hamiltonian equations of motion. We show that it is possible to extend the metric structure to the full space of the (P,S), and this leads in a natural way to introducing a Kähler structure; i.e., a geometry that includes compatible symplectic, metric and complex structures. The simplest geometry that describes these spaces of evolving probabilities has remarkable properties: the natural, canonical variables are precisely the wave functions of quantum mechanics; the Hamiltonian for the quantum free particle can be derived from a representation of the Galilean group using purely geometrical arguments; and it is straightforward to associate with this geometry a Hilbert space which turns out to be the Hilbert space of quantum mechanics. We are led in this way to a reconstruction of quantum theory based solely on the geometry of probabilities in motion.
Quantum mechanics is conventionally formulated in terms of complex Hilbert spaces, linear operators, and the Schrödinger equation. Although geometric structures play an increasingly important role in modern formulations of quantum theory, the wavefunction itself is generally regarded as a fundamental object. In this work, we investigate an alternative formulation in which the fundamental object is a coherence coordinate , where Omega represents radial coherence and Theta represents phase coherence associated with geometric transport. Starting from three assumptions—a coherence coordinate, a probability density generated by radial coherence, and a geometric Hamiltonian—we reconstruct the continuity equation, the quantum Hamilton–Jacobi equation, and ultimately the Schrödinger equation. Within this framework, the wavefunction appears as a derived quantity, while Hilbert spaces emerge naturally as spaces of square-integrable functions on a coherence manifold. The resulting construction establishes a differential-geometric representation of quantum mechanics and provides a common geometric language connecting quantum states, probability flow, geometric phases, holonomies, and gauge transport.
It is shown that the geometry of quantum theory can be derived from geometrical structure that may be considered more fundamental. The basic elements of this reconstruction of quantum theory are the natural metric on the space of probabilities (information geometry), the description of dynamics using a Hamiltonian formalism (symplectic geometry), and requirements of consistency (Kähler geometry). The theory that results is standard quantum mechanics, but in a geometrical formulation that includes also a particular case of a family of nonlinear gauge transformations introduced by Doebner and Goldin. The analysis is carried out for the case of discrete quantum mechanics. The work presented here relies heavily on, and extends, previous work done in collaboration with M. J. W. Hall.