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arXiv:quant-ph/0608093 · Modern Physics Letters A

A GAUGE THEORY OF QUANTUM MECHANICS

JOSÉ M. ISIDRO, MAURICE A. DE GOSSON

Published Jan 30, 2007• 3 citations
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Abstract

An Abelian gerbe is constructed over classical phase space. The two-cocycles defining the gerbe are given by Feynman path integrals whose integrands contain the exponential of the Poincaré–Cartan form. The U(1) gauge group on the gerbe has a natural interpretation as the invariance group of the Schrödinger equation on phase space.
DOI
10.1142/s0217732307022578

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Any quantum-mechanical system possesses a U(1) gerbe naturally defined on configuration space. Acting on Feynman's kernel exp(iS/ħ), this U(1) symmetry allows one to arbitrarily pick the origin for the classical action S, on a point-by-point basis on configuration space. This is equivalent to the statement that quantum mechanics is a U(1) gauge theory. Unlike Yang–Mills theories, however, the geometry of this gauge symmetry is not given by a fibre bundle, but rather by a gerbe. Since this gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken, an analogue of the Higgs mechanism must be present. We prove that a Heisenberg-like noncommutativity for the space coordinates is responsible for the breaking. This allows to interpret the noncommutativity of space coordinates as a Higgs mechanism on the quantum-mechanical U(1) gerbe.
Formulations of quantum mechanics incorporating the Weyl gauge transformations are studied in this article and developed further. In the process, impact of the method of observation on its outcome is interpreted in terms of the assigned gauges by incorporating properties of the corresponding experimental arrangement in defining them. Further, the assigned gauge is explicitly incorporated in the Feynman path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. The resulting wavefunction, which is not uniquely defined, represents a gauge equivalence class. The representative wavefunction is still obtained by the original path integral method. Methods to obtain the pertinent information about the assigned gauges supplementing the representative wavefunction are discussed. The probability density is shown to be a uniquely defined gauge invariant quantity but at the expense of some information describing the observable effects contained in gauge factors. In the standard quantum mechanics, a wavefunction is assumed to be defined within a phase factor while the probability density is phase-independent, paralleling these results. Also, the path integral method is used to deduce the Klein-Gordon equation for the representative wavefunction in the Riemannian spaces in a more streamlined manner than the previous derivations.