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Journal of Mathematical Physics

Path integration over compact and noncompact rotation groups

M. Böhm, Georg Junker

Published Sep 1, 1987• 93 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1063/1.527460

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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.
The quantization of physical systems moving on group and symmetric spaces has been an area of active research over the past three decades. This book shows that it is possible to introduce a representation-independent propagator for a real, separable, connected and simply connected Lie group with irreducible, square-integrable representations. For a given set of kinematical variables this propagator is a single generalized function independent of any particular choice of fiducial vector and the irreducible representations of the Lie group generated by these kinematical variables, which nonetheless correctly propagates each element of a continuous representation based on the coherent states associated with these kinematical variables.Furthermore, the book shows that it is possible to construct regularized lattice phase space path integrals for a real, separable, connected and simply connected Lie group with irreducible, square-integrable representations, and although the configuration space is in general a multidimensional curved manifold, it is shown that the resulting lattice phase space path integral has the form of a lattice phase space path integral on a multidimensional flat manifold. Hence, a novel and extremely natural phase space path integral quantization is obtained for general physical systems whose kinematical variables are the generators of a connected and simply connected Lie group. This novel phase space path integral quantization is (a) exact, (b) more general than, and (c) free from the limitations of the previously considered path integral quantizations of free physical systems moving on group manifolds.To illustrate the general theory, a representation-independent propagator is explicitly constructed for SU(2) and the affine group
The n-dimensional Euclidean group—the group of rotations and translations of Rn —is the natural canonical group for quantizing a system whose configuration space is the sphere Sn−1, n≥2. Since every unitary irreducible representation of E(n) is nonsquare integrable it follows that coherent states involving the whole group do not exist for such representations. Instead, coherent states are defined based on unitary, reducible representations of the group, and it will be shown that, with such states, quantum dynamics on the sphere admits a path-integral representation involving novel first-order classical actions defined on E(n) as well as integrations over the entire group manifold at each time slice. Irreducibility of the quantization is achieved through a final limiting process.
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In both classical and quantum mechanics, a dynamical system with symmetry is reduced to a system which has a smaller number of degrees of freedom. In this paper we formulate path integrals for the quantum system reduced by symmetry. The original system is defined in terms of a Riemannian manifold M, on which a Lie group G acts by isometric transformations. Then we show that the path integral on M is reduced to a family of path integrals on a quotient space Q = M/G and that the reduced path integrals are classified by irreducible unitary representations of G. Stratification geometry of the set of spaces (M, Q), which is a generalization of the concept of principal fiber bundle, is used to describe the reduced path integral and consequently the path integral is expressed as a product of three factors; the rotational energy amplitude, which represents integration over the fiber directions, the vibrational energy amplitude, which represents integration over the directions perpendicular to the fiber, and the holonomy factor, which is caused by non-integrability of the vibrational directions. An attention is also paid for a singular point in Q, which arises when the group action of G on M is not free. We determine the boundary condition of the path integral kernel for a path which runs through the singularity.
Quantum kinematics are considered for two classes of systems: (i) the coordinate space is a homogeneous Riemannian manifold and the kinetic energy is the Laplace–Beltrami operator, (ii) the phase-space is a homogeneous Kählerian manifold where the algebra of observables is the universal enveloping algebra of the symmetry group. In both the cases, the path integrals are derived from more fundamental principles. The derivation enables a definite description of the classes of trajectories which constitute the domain of integration in the path integrals. The specification of the classes of functions is important for consistency of the approach. The standard action functional and the variational principle appear in the steepest descent method corresponding to the semiclassical approximation.