Published February 2007 | Version v1
Journal article

Least uncertainty principle in deformation quantization

  • 1. Department of Mathematics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6395 (United States)

Description

Deformation quantization generally produces families of cohomologically equivalent quantizations of a single physical system. We conjecture that the physically meaningful ones (i) allow enough observable energy distributions, i.e., ones for which no pure quantum state has negative probability, and (ii) reduce the uncertainty in the probability distribution of the resulting quantum states. For the simple harmonic oscillator this principle selects the classic Groenewold-Moyal (or Weyl) product on phase space while for the free particle, in which there is no real quantization, all cohomologically equivalent quantizations are equally good

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Journal of Mathematical Physics
Journal Volume
48
Journal Issue
2
Journal Page Range
p. 022103-022103.15
ISSN
0022-2488
CODEN
JMAPAQ

INIS

Country of Publication
United States
Country of Input or Organization
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
INIS RN
38088215
Subject category
S71: CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS;
Descriptors DEI
ALGEBRA; DEFORMATION; ENERGY SPECTRA; HARMONIC OSCILLATORS; PHASE SPACE; PROBABILITY; QUANTIZATION; UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
Descriptors DEC
MATHEMATICAL SPACE; MATHEMATICS; SPACE; SPECTRA

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2007 American Institute of Physics