Quantum mechanics in phase space: an overview with selected papers

✍ Scribed by Cosmas K. Zachos, David B. Fairlie, Thomas L. Curtright

• Book ID: 127454755
• Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 6 MB
• Series: World Scientific series in 20th century physics 34
• Edition: WS
• Category: Library
• City: New Jersey; London
• ISBN: 9812703500
• DOI: 10.1063/1.1366327]

✦ Synopsis

Wigner's quasi-probability distribution function in phase space is a special (Weyl) representation of the density matrix. It has been useful in describing quantum transport in quantum optics; nuclear physics; decoherence, quantum computing, and quantum chaos. It is also important in signal processing and the mathematics of algebraic deformation. A remarkable aspect of its internal logic, pioneered by Groenewold and Moyal, has only emerged in the last quarter-century: it furnishes a third, alternative, formulation of quantum mechanics, independent of the conventional Hilbert space, or path integral formulations.

In this logically complete and self-standing formulation, one need not choose sides - coordinate or momentum space. It works in full phase space, accommodating the uncertainty principle, and it offers unique insights into the classical limit of quantum theory. This invaluable book is a collection of the seminal papers on the formulation, with an introductory overview which provides a trail map for those papers; an extensive bibliography; and simple illustrations, suitable for applications to a broad range of physics problems. It can provide supplementary material for a beginning graduate course in quantum mechanics.

✦ Subjects

Квантовая физика