It is shown that the geometric phase accompanying an arbitrary cyclic change of the state vector can be naturally understood as a canonical phase term in the coherent-state path integral. The adiabatic phase is shown to be derived as a part of the canonical phase.
The general formalism for path integrals expressed in terms of an arbitrary continuous representation (generalized coherent states) is applied to give c-number formulations for the canonical algebra and for the spin algebra, and is used to derive meaningful stationary-phase approximations for these two cases. Some clarification of a recent discussion by Jevicki and Papanicolaou for the spin case is given.
The purpose of this paper is to give a somewhat expanded argument of the concept of the canonical phase recently investigated. This newly identified phase is considered to be a nonintegrable phase defined over the generalized phase space which is regarded as an integral realization of a “quantum (Hilbert) connection.” We formulate the theory in terms of the coherent state path integral. A particular interest is focused on the topological quantization in connection with the representation of compact Lie group and its application to the many-particle problem. We also examine the geometric characteristics of the canonical phase by using a spin model.
We develop the formulation of the spin(SU(2)) coherent state path integrals based on arbitrary fiducial vectors. The resultant action in the path integral expression extensively depends on the vector; It differs from the conventional one in that it has a generalized form having some additional terms. We also study, as physical applications, the geometric phases associated with the coherent state path integrals to find that new effects of the terms may appear in experiments. We see that the formalism gives a clear insight into geometric phases.
The definition and interpretation of canonical, phase space path integrals has evolved over many years to achieve a form that now admits a correct and rigorous formulation, which is also covariant under canonical coordinate transformations. Such formulations involve coherent state representations, which, in their modern version, were originally introduced as an alternative tool to construct phase space path integrals. Moreover, coherent state representations lead to physical interpretations that are more natural than those afforded by more traditional representations. Suitable continuous time regularization procedures lead to a covariant phase space path integral formulation that greatly clarifies the vague phrase that canonical quantization requires Cartesian coordinates.