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Geometric Quantization
In mathematical physics, geometric quantization is a mathematical approach to defining a quantum theory corresponding to a given classical theory. It attempts to carry out quantization, for which there is in general no exact recipe, in such a way that certain analogies between the classical theory and the quantum theory remain manifest. For example, the similarity between the Heisenberg equation in the Heisenberg picture of quantum mechanics and the Hamilton equation in classical physics should be built in. Origins One of the earliest attempts at a natural quantization was Weyl quantization, proposed by Hermann Weyl in 1927. Here, an attempt is made to associate a quantum-mechanical observable (a self-adjoint operator on a Hilbert space) with a real-valued function on classical phase space. The position and momentum in this phase space are mapped to the generators of the Heisenberg group, and the Hilbert space appears as a group representation of the Heisenberg group. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Physics
Mathematical physics is the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories". An alternative definition would also include those mathematics that are inspired by physics, known as physical mathematics. Scope There are several distinct branches of mathematical physics, and these roughly correspond to particular historical parts of our world. Classical mechanics Applying the techniques of mathematical physics to classical mechanics typically involves the rigorous, abstract, and advanced reformulation of Newtonian mechanics in terms of Lagrangian mechanics and Hamiltonian mechanics (including both approaches in the presence of constraints). Both formulations are embodied in analytical mechanics and lead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertram Kostant
Bertram Kostant (May 24, 1928 – February 2, 2017) was an American mathematician who worked in representation theory, differential geometry, and mathematical physics. Early life and education Kostant grew up in New York City, where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1945. He went on to obtain an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Purdue University in 1950. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1954, under the direction of Irving Segal, where he wrote a dissertation on representations of Lie groups. Career in mathematics After time at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, and the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he remained until his retirement in 1993. Kostant's work has involved representation theory, Lie groups, Lie algebras, homogeneous spaces, differential geometry and mathematical physics, particularly symplectic geometry. He has given severa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symplectic Manifold
In differential geometry, a subject of mathematics, a symplectic manifold is a smooth manifold, M , equipped with a closed nondegenerate differential 2-form \omega , called the symplectic form. The study of symplectic manifolds is called symplectic geometry or symplectic topology. Symplectic manifolds arise naturally in abstract formulations of classical mechanics and analytical mechanics as the cotangent bundles of manifolds. For example, in the Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics, which provides one of the major motivations for the field, the set of all possible configurations of a system is modeled as a manifold, and this manifold's cotangent bundle describes the phase space of the system. Motivation Symplectic manifolds arise from classical mechanics; in particular, they are a generalization of the phase space of a closed system. In the same way the Hamilton equations allow one to derive the time evolution of a system from a set of differential equations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deformation Quantization
In mathematics and physics, deformation quantization roughly amounts to finding a (quantum) algebra whose classical limit is a given (classical) algebra such as a Lie algebra or a Poisson algebra. In physics Intuitively, a deformation of a mathematical object is a family of the same kind of objects that depend on some parameter(s). Here, it provides rules for how to deform the "classical" commutative algebra of observables to a quantum non-commutative algebra of observables. The basic setup in deformation theory is to start with an algebraic structure (say a Lie algebra) and ask: Does there exist a one or more parameter(s) family of ''similar'' structures, such that for an initial value of the parameter(s) one has the same structure (Lie algebra) one started with? (The oldest illustration of this may be the realization of Eratosthenes in the ancient world that a flat Earth was deformable to a spherical Earth, with deformation parameter 1/''R''⊕.) E.g., one may define a nonc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spin-1/2
In quantum mechanics, spin is an intrinsic property of all elementary particles. All known fermions, the particles that constitute ordinary matter, have a spin of . The spin number describes how many symmetrical facets a particle has in one full rotation; a spin of means that the particle must be rotated by two full turns (through 720°) before it has the same configuration as when it started. Particles with net spin include the proton, neutron, electron, neutrino, and quarks. The dynamics of spin- objects cannot be accurately described using classical physics; they are among the simplest systems whose description requires quantum mechanics. As such, the study of the behavior of spin- systems forms a central part of quantum mechanics. Stern–Gerlach experiment The necessity of introducing half-integer spin goes back experimentally to the results of the Stern–Gerlach experiment. A beam of atoms is run through a strong heterogeneous magnetic field, which then splits ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SU(2)
In mathematics, the special unitary group of degree , denoted , is the Lie group of unitary matrices with determinant 1. The matrices of the more general unitary group may have complex determinants with absolute value 1, rather than real 1 in the special case. The group operation is matrix multiplication. The special unitary group is a normal subgroup of the unitary group , consisting of all unitary matrices. As a compact classical group, is the group that preserves the standard inner product on \mathbb^n. It is itself a subgroup of the general linear group, \operatorname(n) \subset \operatorname(n) \subset \operatorname(n, \mathbb ). The groups find wide application in the Standard Model of particle physics, especially in the electroweak interaction and in quantum chromodynamics. The simplest case, , is the trivial group, having only a single element. The group is isomorphic to the group of quaternions of norm 1, and is thus diffeomorphic to the 3-sphere. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coadjoint Orbit
In mathematics, the coadjoint representation K of a Lie group G is the dual of the adjoint representation. If \mathfrak denotes the Lie algebra of G, the corresponding action of G on \mathfrak^*, the dual space to \mathfrak, is called the coadjoint action. A geometrical interpretation is as the action by left-translation on the space of right-invariant 1-forms on G. The importance of the coadjoint representation was emphasised by work of Alexandre Kirillov, who showed that for nilpotent Lie groups G a basic role in their representation theory is played by coadjoint orbits. In the Kirillov method of orbits, representations of G are constructed geometrically starting from the coadjoint orbits. In some sense those play a substitute role for the conjugacy classes of G, which again may be complicated, while the orbits are relatively tractable. Formal definition Let G be a Lie group and \mathfrak be its Lie algebra. Let \mathrm : G \rightarrow \mathrm(\mathfrak) denote the adjoint re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sphere
A sphere (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ) is a surface (mathematics), surface analogous to the circle, a curve. In solid geometry, a sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three-dimensional space.. That given point is the center (geometry), ''center'' of the sphere, and the distance is the sphere's ''radius''. The earliest known mentions of spheres appear in the work of the Greek mathematics, ancient Greek mathematicians. The sphere is a fundamental surface in many fields of mathematics. Spheres and nearly-spherical shapes also appear in nature and industry. Bubble (physics), Bubbles such as soap bubbles take a spherical shape in equilibrium. The Earth is spherical Earth, often approximated as a sphere in geography, and the celestial sphere is an important concept in astronomy. Manufactured items including pressure vessels and most curved mirrors and lenses are based on spheres. Spheres rolling, roll smoothly in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-autonomous Mechanics
Non-autonomous mechanics describe non- relativistic mechanical systems subject to time-dependent transformations. In particular, this is the case of mechanical systems whose Lagrangians and Hamiltonians depend on the time. The configuration space of non-autonomous mechanics is a fiber bundle Q\to \mathbb R over the time axis \mathbb R coordinated by (t,q^i). This bundle is trivial, but its different trivializations Q=\mathbb R\times M correspond to the choice of different non-relativistic reference frames. Such a reference frame also is represented by a connection \Gamma on Q\to\mathbb R which takes a form \Gamma^i =0 with respect to this trivialization. The corresponding covariant differential (q^i_t-\Gamma^i)\partial_i determines the relative velocity with respect to a reference frame \Gamma. As a consequence, non-autonomous mechanics (in particular, non-autonomous Hamiltonian mechanics) can be formulated as a covariant classical field theory (in particular covariant Hamiltoni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Superintegrable Hamiltonian System
In mathematics, a superintegrable Hamiltonian system is a Hamiltonian system on a 2n-dimensional symplectic manifold for which the following conditions hold: (i) There exist k>n independent integrals F_i of motion. Their level surfaces (invariant submanifolds) form a fibered manifold F:Z\to N=F(Z) over a connected open subset N\subset\mathbb R^k. (ii) There exist smooth real functions s_ on N such that the Poisson bracket of integrals of motion reads \= s_\circ F. (iii) The matrix function s_ is of constant corank m=2n-k on N. If k=n, this is the case of a completely integrable Hamiltonian system. The Mishchenko-Fomenko theorem for superintegrable Hamiltonian systems generalizes the Liouville-Arnold theorem on action-angle coordinates of completely integrable Hamiltonian system as follows. Let invariant submanifolds of a superintegrable Hamiltonian system be connected compact and mutually diffeomorphic. Then the fibered manifold F is a fiber bundle in tori T^m. There exists a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Integrable System
In mathematics, integrability is a property of certain dynamical systems. While there are several distinct formal definitions, informally speaking, an integrable system is a dynamical system with sufficiently many conserved quantities, or first integrals, that its motion is confined to a submanifold of much smaller dimensionality than that of its phase space. Three features are often referred to as characterizing integrable systems: * the existence of a ''maximal'' set of conserved quantities (the usual defining property of complete integrability) * the existence of algebraic invariants, having a basis in algebraic geometry (a property known sometimes as algebraic integrability) * the explicit determination of solutions in an explicit functional form (not an intrinsic property, but something often referred to as solvability) Integrable systems may be seen as very different in qualitative character from more ''generic'' dynamical systems, which are more typically chaotic syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Segal–Bargmann Space
In mathematics, the Segal–Bargmann space (for Irving Segal and Valentine Bargmann), also known as the Bargmann space or Bargmann–Fock space, is the space of holomorphic functions ''F'' in ''n'' complex variables satisfying the square-integrability condition: \, F\, ^2 := \pi^ \int_ , F(z), ^2 \exp(-, z, ^2)\,dz < \infty, where here ''dz'' denotes the 2''n''-dimensional Lebesgue measure on It is a with respect to the associated inner product: The space was introduced in the mathematical physics literature separately by Bargmann and Segal in the early 1960s; see and . Basic information about the material in this section may be found in and . Segal worked from the beginning in the infinite-dimensional setting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
