From Geometry To Quantum Mechanics

This book offers a complete discussion of techniques and topics intervening in the mathematical treatment of quantum and semi-classical mechanics. It starts with a very readable introduction to symplectic geometry. Many topics are also of genuine interest for pure mathematicians working in geometry and topology.

This book collects independent contributions on current developments in quantum information theory, a very interdisciplinary field at the intersection of physics, computer science and mathematics. Making intense use of the most advanced concepts from each discipline, the authors give in each contribution pedagogical introductions to the main concepts underlying their present research and present a personal perspective on some of the most exciting open problems. Keeping this diverse audience in mind, special efforts have been made to ensure that the basic concepts underlying quantum information are covered in an understandable way for mathematical readers, who can find there new open challenges for their research. At the same time, the volume can also be of use to physicists wishing to learn advanced mathematical tools, especially of differential and algebraic geometric nature.

Available for the first time in soft cover, this book is a classic on the foundations of quantum theory. It examines the subject from a point of view that goes back to Heisenberg and Dirac and whose definitive mathematical formulation is due to von Neumann. This view leads most naturally to the fundamental questions that are at the basis of all attempts to understand the world of atomic and subatomic particles.

In the last decade, the development of new ideas in quantum theory, including geometric and deformation quantization, the non-Abelian Berry's geometric factor, super- and BRST symmetries, non-commutativity, has called into play the geometric techniques based on the deep interplay between algebra, differential geometry and topology. The book aims at being a guide to advanced differential geometric and topological methods in quantum mechanics. Their main peculiarity lies in the fact that geometry in quantum theory speaks mainly the algebraic language of rings, modules, sheaves and categories. Geometry is by no means the primary scope of the book, but it underlies many ideas in modern quantum physics and provides the most advanced schemes of quantization.

The first title in a new series, this book explores topics from classical and quantum mechanics and field theory. The material is presented at a level between that of a textbook and research papers making it ideal for graduate students. The book provides an entree into a field that promises to remain exciting and important for years to come.

This monograph presents a review and analysis of the main mathematical, physical and epistomological difficulties encountered at the foundational level by all the conventional formulations of relativistic quantum theories, ranging from relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory in Minkowski space, to the various canonical and covariant approaches to quantum gravity. It is, however, primarily devoted to the systematic presentation of a quantum framework meant to deal effectively with these difficulties by reconsidering the foundations of these subjects, analyzing their epistemic nature, and then developing mathematical tools which are specifically designed for the elimination of all the basic inconsistencies. A carefully documented historical survey is included, and additional extensive notes containing quotations from original sources are incorporated at the end of each chapter, so that the reader will be brought up-to-date with the very latest developments in quantum field theory in curved spacetime, quantum gravity and quantum cosmology. The survey further provides a backdrop against which the new foundational and mathematical ideas of the present approach to these subjects can be brought out in sharper relief.

This book contains a revised and expanded version of the lecture notes of two seminar series given during the academic year 1976/77 at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Calgary, and in the summer of 1978 at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Technical University Clausthal. The aim of the seminars was to present geometric quantization from the point of view· of its applica tions to quantum mechanics, and to introduce the quantum dynamics of various physical systems as the result of the geometric quantization of the classical dynamics of these systems. The group representation aspects of geometric quantiza tion as well as proofs of the existence and the uniqueness of the introduced structures can be found in the expository papers of Blattner, Kostant, Sternberg and Wolf, and also in the references quoted in these papers. The books of Souriau (1970) and Simms and Woodhouse (1976) present the theory of geometric quantization and its relationship to quantum mech anics. The purpose of the present book is to complement the preceding ones by including new developments of the theory and emphasizing the computations leading to results in quantum mechanics.