p-mechanics is a consistent physical theory which describes both classical and quantum mechanics simultaneously through the representation theory of the Heisenberg group. In this paper we describe how nonlinear canonical transformations affect p-mechanical observables and states. Using this we show how canonical transformations change a quantum mechanical system. We seek an operator on the set of p-mechanical observables which corresponds to the classical canonical transformation. In order to do this we derive a set of integral equations which when solved will give us the coherent state expansion of this operator. The motivation for these integral equations comes from the work of Moshinsky and a variety of collaborators. We consider a number of examples and discuss the use of these equations for non-bijective transformations.
p-mechanics is a consistent physical theory which describes both classical and quantum mechanics simultaneously through the representation theory of the Heisenberg group. In this paper we describe how nonlinear canonical transformations affect p-mechanical observables and states. Using this we show how canonical transformations change a quantum mechanical system. We seek an operator on the set of p-mechanical observables which corresponds to the classical canonical transformation. In order to do this we derive a set of integral equations which when solved will give us the coherent state expansion of this operator. The motivation for these integral equations comes from the work of Moshinsky and a variety of collaborators. We consider a number of examples and discuss the use of these equations for non-bijective transformations.
p-Mechanics is a consistent physical theory which describes both classical and quantum mechanics simultaneously through the representation theory of the Heisenberg group. In this paper we describe how non-linear canonical transformations affect p-mechanical observables and states. Using this we show how canonical transformations change a quantum mechanical system. We seek an operator on the set of p-mechanical observables which corresponds to the classical canonical transformation. In order to do this we derive a set of integral equations which when solved will give us the coherent state expansion of this operator. The motivation for these integral equations comes from the work of Moshinsky and a variety of collaborators. We consider a number of examples and discuss the use of these equations for non-bijective transformations.
This thesis is concerned with the representation theory of the Heisenberg group and its applications to both classical and quantum mechanics. We continue the development of p-mechanics which is a consistent physical theory capable of describing both classical and quantum mechanics simultaneously. p-Mechanics starts from the observation that the one dimensional representations of the Heisenberg group play the same role in classical mechanics which the infinite dimensional representations play in quantum mechanics. In this thesis we introduce the idea of states to p-mechanics. p-Mechanical states come in two forms: elements of a Hilbert space and integration kernels. In developing p-mechanical states we show that quantum probability amplitudes can be obtained using solely functions/distributions on the Heisenberg group. This theory is applied to the examples of the forced, harmonic and coupled oscillators. In doing so we show that both the quantum and classical dynamics of these systems can be derived from the same source. Also using p-mechanics we simplify some of the current quantum mechanical calculations. We also analyse the role of both linear and non-linear canonical transformations in p-mechanics. We enhance a method derived by Moshinsky for studying the passage of canonical transformations from classical to quantum mechanics. The Kepler/Coulomb problem is also examined in the p-mechanical context. In analysing this problem we show some limitations of the current p-mechanical approach. We then use Klauder's coherent states to generate a Hilbert space which is particularly useful for the Kepler/Coulomb problem.
In the last few years an extensive literature has developed on linear canonical tranformations and their representation in quantum mechanics. Applications of these results have been made to clustering theory in nuclei, problems of accidental degeneracy, etc. In the present paper we wish to turn our attention to nonlinear canonical transformations. We show that by dealing with appropriate functions fα (α=1,...,2n) of xi, pi (i=1,...,n) rather than with these variables themselves, we can in principle set unambiguously the equations that determine the representation in quantum mechanics of the canonical transformation under study. This result holds when the old and new functions fα have the same spectrum. We discuss specific examples when this last condition is satisfied: nonlinear canonical transformations in the radial variable that were obtained from projection of linear ones in higher-dimensional spaces; canonical transformations that take us from one Hamiltonian to another with the same spectrum, be this one continuous or discrete; canonical transformations that relate two sets of integrals of motion (which include the Hamiltonians) when we are dealing with phase spaces of dimensions higher than 2, etc. We discuss briefly, in the concluding section, the possibility of extending our analysis to canonical tranformations that do not conserve the spectrum of the relevant operators.
This is an up-to-date survey of the p-mechanical construction (see funct-an/9405002, quant-ph/9610016, math-ph/0007030, quant-ph/0212101, quant-ph/0303142), which is a consistent physical theory suitable for a simultaneous description of classical and quantum mechanics. Observables in p-mechanics are defined to be convolution operators on the Heisenberg group H^n. Under irreducible representations of H^n the p-observables generate corresponding observables in classical and quantum mechanics. p-States are defined as positive linear functionals on p-observables. It is shown that both states and observables can be realised as certain sets of functions/distributions on the Heisenberg group. The dynamical equations for both p-observables and p-states are provided. The construction is illustrated by the forced and unforced harmonic oscillators. Connections with the contextual interpretation of quantum mechanics are discussed. Keywords: Classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, Moyal brackets, Poisson brackets, commutator, Heisenberg group, orbit method, deformation quantisation, symplectic group, representation theory, metaplectic representation, Berezin quantisation, Weyl quantisation, Segal--Bargmann--Fock space, coherent states, wavelet transform, Liouville equation, contextual interpretation, interaction picture, forced harmonic oscillator.
Representations of nonlinear nonbijective canonical transformations in quantum mechanics are discussed. Due to the nonbijectivity the classical phase space has a Riemann sheet structure, and a family of partial isometries translating this structure into quantum mechanics is constructed. If a unitary representation is required, a new variable-the ambiguity spin-has to be introduced in order to recover bijectivity following the approach of Moshinsky (1981) and co-workers. The new degree of freedom is analysed in terms of multiboson operators. The application of this formalism to some non-classical states of light is discussed.
In the present paper we analyze the representations in quantum mechanics of classical canonical transformations that are nonbijective, i.e., not one-to-one onto. We take as the central example the canonical transformation that changes the Hamiltonian of a one-dimensional oscillator of frequency κ−1 into one of frequency k−1 where κ, k are relatively prime integers. For the particular case k=1, the mapping of the original phase space (x,p) onto the new one (x̄, p̄) is κ to 1 and the equivalent points in (x,p) are related by a cyclic group 𝒞κ of linear canonical transformations. When formulating this problem in Bargmann Hilbert space, the canonical transformation can be related to the conformal transformation w=zκ, which again is κ to 1 and where a group 𝒞κ also appears. This cyclic group proves fundamental for the determination of representations of the conformal transformation in Bargmann Hilbert space. To begin with, it suggests that while we can take in the original Bargmann Hilbert space a single component function, in the new Bargmann Hilbert space we must take a κ component one. In this way we can map in a one-to-one fashion the states and operators in the old and new Bargmann Hilbert spaces. When translating these results to ordinary Hilbert space, we get in an unambiguous way the quantization of the observables appearing in the equations that determine the representation of the classical canonical transformation relating oscillators of frequencies κ−1 and k−1. Furthermore, we also get the solutions of these equations, and the resulting representation is unitary. While our discussion is restricted to the problem mentioned above, in the concluding section we indicate our surmise for deriving systematically the unitary representation in quantum mechanics of arbitrary canonical transformations.