Symplectic Geometry and Quantum Mechanics [Hardcover]

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.

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-knownbythe 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 ? ingers 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 l#