Symplectic Geometry and Quantum Mechanics (Operator Theory: Advances and Applications, 166)

Introduction We have been experiencing since the 1970s a process of “symplectization” of S- ence especially since it has been realized that symplectic geometry is the natural language of both classical mechanics in its Hamiltonian formulation, and of its re?nement,quantum mechanics. The purposeof this bookis to providecorema- rial in the symplectic treatment of quantum mechanics, in both its semi-classical and in its “full-blown” operator-theoretical formulation, with a special emphasis on so-called phase-space techniques. It is also intended to be a work of reference for the reading of more advanced texts in the rapidly expanding areas of sympl- tic geometry and topology, where the prerequisites are too often assumed to be “well-known”bythe reader. Thisbookwillthereforebeusefulforbothpurema- ematicians and mathematical physicists. My dearest wish is that the somewhat novel presentation of some well-established topics (for example the uncertainty principle and Schrod ¨ inger’s equation) will perhaps shed some new light on the fascinating subject of quantization and may open new perspectives for future - terdisciplinary research. I have tried to present a balanced account of topics playing a central role in the “symplectization of quantum mechanics” but of course this book in great part represents my own tastes. Some important topics are lacking (or are only alluded to): for instance Kirillov theory, coadjoint orbits, or spectral theory. We will moreover almost exclusively be working in ?at symplectic space: the slight loss in generality is, from my point of view, compensated by the fact that simple things are not hidden behind complicated “intrinsic” notation.

This book is devoted to a rather complete discussion of techniques and topics intervening in the mathematical treatment of quantum and semi-classical mechanics. It starts with a  rigorous presentation of the basics of symplectic geometry and of its multiply-oriented extension. Further chapters concentrate on Lagrangian manifolds, Weyl operators and the Wigner-Moyal transform as well as on metaplectic groups and Maslov indices. Thus the keys for the mathematical description of quantum mechanics in phase space are discussed. They are followed by a rigorous geometrical treatment of the uncertainty principle. Then Hilbert-Schmidt and trace-class operators are exposed in order to treat density matrices. In the last chapter the Weyl pseudo-differential calculus is extended to phase space in order to derive a Schrödinger equation in phase space whose solutions are related to those of the usual Schrödinger equation by a wave-packet transform.

The text is essentially self-contained and can be used as basis for graduate courses. Many topics are of genuine interest for pure mathematicians working in geometry and topology.