There is a natural equivalence relation on representations of the states of a given quantum system in a Hilbert space, two representations being equivalent iff they are related by a unitary transformation. There are two equivalence classes, with members of opposite classes being related by a conjugate-unitary (anti-unitary) transformation. These two conjugacy classes are related in much the same way as are the two imaginary units of a complex field, and there is a priori no basis on which to prefer one over the other in any individual case. This is potentially problematic in that the choice of conjugacy class of a representation determines the sign of energy and other quantities defined as generators of continuous symmetries of the system in question, so that it would appear that principles like conservation of energy for a compound system may hold or fail depending on relative choices of conjugacy class of representations of its subsystems. We show that for any finite set of quantum systems there are exactly two ways of choosing conjugacy classes of representations consistent with the usual tensor-product construction for representing the compound system composed of these. Each is obtained from the other by reversing the conjugacy of all the representations at once. The relation of unitary equivalence for representations of a single system is therefore uniquely extendible to representations of all systems that can interact with it.
There is a natural equivalence relation on representations of the states of a given quantum system in a Hilbert space, two representations being equivalent iff they are related by a unitary transformation. There are two equivalence classes, with members of opposite classes being related by a conjugate-unitary (anti-unitary) transformation. These two conjugacy classes are related in much the same way as are the two imaginary units of a complex field, and there is a priori no basis on which to prefer one over the other in any individual case. This is potentially problematic in that the choice of conjugacy class of a representation determines the sign of energy and other quantities defined as generators of continuous symmetries of the system in question, so that it would appear that principles like conservation of energy for a compound system may hold or fail depending on relative choices of conjugacy class of representations of its subsystems. We show that for any finite set of quantum systems there are exactly two ways of choosing conjugacy classes of representations consistent with the usual tensor-product construction for representing the compound system composed of these. Each is obtained from the other by reversing the conjugacy of all the representations at once. The relation of unitary equivalence for representations of a single system is therefore uniquely extendible to representations of all systems that can interact with it.
A physical theory often admits different mathematical descriptions. Classical mechanics has three familiar formulations: the traditional Newton’s formulation, the Lagrange’s and the Hamilton’s formulations. It is easy to see that these are physically equivalent. Quantum mechanics also admits many different formulations. This chapter discusses how different mathematical descriptions of a probability theory based on a Hilbert space can be physically equivalent. The prescription does not single out a unique Hilbert space nor a unique set of unit vectors and operators for the description of a given quantum system. This non-uniqueness does not matter since operators and unit vectors themselves are not physically measurable quantities. Two different mathematical descriptions of a quantum system are physically equivalent if the unit vectors and selfadjoint operators for the representation of states and observables in the two descriptions are related by a simultaneous unitary transformation.
A quantum theoretic representation of real and complex numbers is described here as equivalence classes of Cauchy sequences of quantum states of finite strings of qubits. There are 4 types of qubits each with associated single qubit annihilation creation (a-c) operators that give the state and location of each qubit type on a 2 dimensional integer lattice. The string states, defined as finite products of creation operators acting on the qubit vacuum state correspond to complex rational numbers with real and imaginary components. These states span a Fock space. Arithmetic relations and operations are defined for the string states. Cauchy sequences of these states are defined, and the arithmetic relations and operations lifted to apply to these sequences. Based on these, equivalence classes of these sequences are seen to have the requisite properties of real and complex numbers. The representations have some interesting aspects. Quantum equivalence classes are larger than their corresponding classical classes, but no new classes are created. There exist Cauchy sequences such that each state in the sequence is an entangled superposition of the real and imaginary components, yet the sequence is a real number. Also, except for coefficients of superposition states, the construction is done with no reference to the real and complex number base, R and C, of the Fock space.
In principle, the lattice of elementary propositions of a generic quantum system admits a representation in real, complex or quaternionic Hilbert spaces as established by Solèr’s theorem (1995) closing a long standing problem that can be traced back to von Neumann’s mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. However up to now there are no examples of quantum systems described in Hilbert spaces whose scalar field is different from the set of complex numbers. We show that elementary relativistic systems cannot be described by irreducible strongly-continuous unitary representations of SL(2, C) on real or quaternionic Hilbert spaces as a consequence of some peculiarity of the generators related with the theory of polar decomposition of operators. Indeed such a ”naive” attempt leads necessarily to an equivalent formulation on a complex Hilbert space. Although this conclusion seems to give a definitive answer to the real/quaternionic-quantum-mechanics issue, it lacks consistency since it does not derive from more general physical hypotheses as the complex one does. Trying a more solid approach, in both situations we end up with three possibilities: an equivalent description in terms of a Wigner unitary representation in a real, complex or quaternionic Hilbert space. At this point the ”naive” result turns out to be a definitely important technical lemma, for it forbids the two extreme possibilities. \nIn conclusion, the real/quaternionic theory is actually complex. This improved approach is based upon the concept of von Neumann algebra of observables. Unfortunately, while \nthere exists a thorough literature about these algebras on real and complex Hilbert spaces, an analysis on the notion of von Neumann algebra over a quaternionic Hilbert space is \ncompletely absent to our knowledge. There are several issues in trying to define such a mathematical object, first of all the inability to construct linear combination of operators \nwith quaternionic coeffients. Restricting ourselves to unital real *-algebras of operators we are able to prove the von Neumann Double Commutant Theorem also on quaternionc \nHilbert spaces. Clearly, this property turns out to be crucial.
Symmetry in quantum mechanicsRoughly speaking, a symmetry of some mathematical object is an invertible transformation that leaves all relevant structure as it is.Thus a symmetry of a set is just a bijection (as sets have no further structure, whence invertibility is the only demand on a symmetry), a symmetry of a topological space is a homeomorphism, a symmetry of a Banach space is a linear isometric isomorphism, and, crucially important for this chapter, a symmetry of a Hilbert space H is a unitary operator, i.e., a linear map u : H → H satisfying one and hence all of the following equivalent conditions:• u is invertible and preserves the inner product, i.e., uϕ, uψ = ϕ, ψ (ϕ, ψ ∈ H).The discussion of symmetries in quantum physics is based on the above idea, but the mathematically obvious choices need not be the physically relevant ones.Even in elementary quantum mechanics, where A = B(H), i.e., the C*-algebra of all bounded operators on some Hilbert space H, the concept of a symmetry is already diverse.The main structures whose symmetries we shall study in this chapter are:1.The normal pure state space P 1 (H), i.e., the set of one-dimensional projections on H, with transition probability τ : P 1 (H) × P 1 (H) → [0, 1] defined by (2.44).2. The normal state space D(H), i.e. the convex set of density operators ρ on H. The self-adjoint operators B(H)sa on H, seen as a Jordan algebra (see below).4. The effects E (H) = [0, 1] B(H) , seen as a convex partially ordered set (poset). 5.The projections P(H) on H, seen as an orthocomplemented lattice.6.The unital commutative C*-subalgebras C (B(H)) of B(H), seen as a poset.Each of these structures comes with its own notion of a symmetry, but the main point of this chapter will be to show these notions are equivalent, corresponding in all cases to either unitary or-surprisingly-anti-unitary operators, both merely defined up to a phase.The latter subtlety will open the world of projective unitary group representation to quantum mechanics (without which the existence of spin-1 2 particles such as electrons, and therewith also of ourselves, would be impossible).
The received view in the philosophy of physics is that a quantum theory is given its mathematical formulation in a so-called Hilbert space, with the states of a quantum system given by the elements of this space and observables—measurable quantities of the system—given by so-called operators on this space. But the status of this fundamental postulate becomes threatened when one moves to complex systems, like the quantum fields underlying fundamental particle physics or statistical systems composed of infinite collections of quantum particles. In these more complex cases, one finds many inequivalent Hilbert space representations that appear to be competing quantum theories. In looking for a mathematical structure of the theory to interpret as representing the physical world, one is faced with a choice: either arbitrarily pick one Hilbert space representation (out of the many competing representations) as a Hilbert Space Conservative, or else look for the abstract algebraic structure that all of these competing representations have in common as an Algebraic Imperialist. This dissertation provides an extended argument for the second route.
We have studied quantum systems on finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces and found that all these systems are connected through local transformations. Actually, we have shown that these transformations give rise to a gauge group that connects the Hamiltonian operators associated with each quantum system. This bridge allows us to connect different quantum systems, in such a way that studying one of them allows to understand the other through a gauge transformation. Furthermore, we included the case where the Hamiltonian operator can be time-dependent. An application for this construction will be achieved in the theory of control quantum systems.