Fiber Bundles in Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics

Herbert Joseph Bernstein, Anthony V. Phillips

Patrick Moylan

Abstract The problem of describing a quantum mechanical system with symmetry by a fiber bundle is considered. The quantization of a fiber bundle is introduced. Fiber bundles for the Kepler problem and the rotator are constructed. The fiber bundle concept provides a new model for a physical system: it provides us with a model for an elementary particle with extension having integral values of spin.

Gennadi Aleksandrovich Sardanashvily

We address classical and quantum mechanics in a general setting of arbitrary time-dependent transformations. Classical non-relativistic mechanics is formulated as a particular field theory on smooth fiber bundles over a time axis ℝ. Connections on these bundles describe reference frames. Quantum non-autonomous mechanics is phrased in geometric terms of Banach and Hilbert bundles and connections on these bundles. A quantization scheme speaking this language is geometric quantization.

Richard M. Sillitto, Robert C. Whitten

Jordan François, Lucrezia Ravera

Abstract A bundle geometric formulation of non‐relativistic many‐particles Quantum Mechanics is presented. A wave function is seen to be a ‐valued cocyclic tensorial 0‐form on configuration space‐time seen as a principal bundle, while the Schrödinger equation flows from its covariant derivative, with the action functional supplying a (flat) cocyclic connection 1‐form on the configuration bundle. In line with the historical motivations of Dirac and Feynman, ours is thus a Lagrangian geometric formulation of QM, in which the Dirac–Feynman path integral arises in a geometrically natural way. Applying the dressing field method , we obtain a relational reformulation of this geometric non‐relativistic QM: a relational wave function is realised as a basic cocyclic 0‐form on the configuration bundle. In this relational QM, any particle position can be used as a dressing field, i.e., as a “physical reference frame.” The dressing field method naturally accounts for the freedom in choosing the dressing field, which is readily understood as a covariance of the relational formulation under changes of physical reference frame.

J. S. Faulkner