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# Deformation Quantization in the Teaching of Quantum Mechanics

## 1 Introduction

In this article we discuss and compare three approaches to quantum mechanics: the operator formalism, the path integral approach, and deformation quantization. Conventional texts use the formalism in which the observables are represented by operators in Hilbert space, an approach that goes back to Dirac$`^{\text{References}}`$ and von Neumann.$`^{\text{References}}`$ The path integral approach was initiated by Feynman$`^{\text{References}}`$ and is widely used today in research in quantum field theory. For this reason it is also discussed in some introductory treatments, for example, in Ref. , and in more advanced texts.$`^{\text{References}}`$ Some of the techniques used in deformation quantization were introduced by the pioneers of quantum mechanics (Wigner,$`^{\text{References}}`$ Weyl,$`^{\text{References}}`$ von Neumann$`^{\text{References}}`$), but it was first proposed as an autonomous theory by Bayen et al.$`^{\text{References}}`$ in 1978. Since then, many other articles have been written on the topic. For recent reviews see Refs. .

Deformation quantization concentrates on the central physical concepts of quantum theory: the algebra of observables and their dynamical evolution.$`^{\text{References}}`$ Because it deals exclusively with functions of phase space variables, its conceptual break with classical mechanics is less severe than in other approaches. It gives the correspondence principle, which played such an important role in the historical development, a precise formulation. It is set in the framework of Poisson manifolds, which are an important generalization of the usual symplectic case, and which are needed for the formulation of gauge field theories. Many of its results can be rigorously established using adaptions of known techniques or completely new approaches. For these reasons it may well lead to progress in treating problems in quantum field theory,$`^{\text{References}}`$ as well as in ordinary quantum mechanics, where its techniques already enjoy a measure of popularity, see for example the references in . Recently it has received an important impetus from new developments in mathematics,$`^{\text{References}}`$ recognized by Kontsevich’s Fields medal in 1998. Some believe it will supplant, or at least complement, the other methods in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. As an autonomous approach to quantum theory, its conceptual advantages recommend its use in graduate instruction.

In this article we sketch how one might go about teaching quantum mechanics according to this approach. Background material at the appropriate level can be found in the texts by Marsden and Ratiu,$`^{\text{References}}`$ Vaisman,$`^{\text{References}}`$ and da Silva and Weinstein.$`^{\text{References}}`$ In Sec. 2 we briefly review the fundamental concepts of the Hamiltonian formalism for classical mechanics and their generalization to the setting of Poisson manifolds. In Sec. 3 we introduce the main tool of deformation quantization, the star product, which deforms the commutative classical algebra of observables into the non-commutative quantum algebra of observables. Having chosen a quantization scheme one can proceed to calculate the physical quantities of interest for a given system, following the method presented in Sec. 4. These techniques are illustrated in Sec. 5 for the case of the simple harmonic oscillator. Section 6 gives a short review of conventional quantization, in preparation for Sec. 7, which compares the conventional approach to deformation quantization and to path integral methods. Finally, Sec. 8 gives an overview of some important applications of deformation quantization in relativistic quantum field theory. The appendix demonstrates calculational techniques useful in this context, and suggests some exercises that students can do to familiarize themselves with the material.

## 2 Classical Mechanics and Poisson Manifolds

Quantum mechanics and the canonical Hamiltonian formalism for classical mechanics have always been closely related. When we speak of a classical dynamical system with a finite number of degrees of freedom, we have in mind something like an $`n`$-particle system, where the particles are specified at any time by their instantaneous positions and momenta. That is, the state of the system is specified as a point in the $`2n`$-dimensional phase space $`M`$. $`M`$ is a smooth manifold, and in canonical coordinates a point $`x`$ in $`M`$ is written as $`x=(q,p)=(q_1,\mathrm{},q_n,p_1,\mathrm{},p_n)`$.

The observables of the system, such as the Hamilton function for example, are smooth real-valued functions on this phase space. Physical quantities of the system at some time, such as the energy, are calculated by evaluating the Hamilton function at the point in phase space $`x_0=(q_0,p_0)`$ that characterizes the state of the system at this time. The mathematical expression for this operation is

$$E=H(q,p)\delta ^{(2)}(qq_0,pp_0)𝑑q𝑑p,$$
(2.1)
where $`\delta ^{(2)}`$ is the two-dimensional Dirac delta function (we assume for notational simplicity a one-particle system). The observables of the dynamical system are functions on the phase space, the states of the system are positive functionals on the observables (here the Dirac delta functions), and we obtain the value of the observable in a definite state by the operation shown in Eq. (2.1).

In general, functions on a manifold are multiplied by each other in a pointwise manner, that is, given two functions $`f`$ and $`g`$, their product $`fg`$ is the function

$$(fg)(x)=f(x)g(x).$$
(2.2)
In the context of classical mechanics we say that the observables build a commutative algebra, and we speak of the commutative classical algebra of observables.

In Hamiltonian mechanics there is another way to combine two functions on phase space in such a way that a further function on phase space results, namely by use of the Poisson bracket

$$\{f,g\}(q,p)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left(\frac{f}{q_i}\frac{g}{p_i}\frac{f}{p_i}\frac{g}{q_i}\right)|_{q,p}.$$
(2.3)
Note that here the new function results not by using the values of the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$ at the given point in phase space, but rather by using the values of their derivatives at this point.

Because expressions like those in Eq. (2.3) are used frequently, it is advantageous to employ a compact notation. We provide the derivatives with vector symbols, which indicate if they act on functions to the right or to the left. For example,

$$f\stackrel{}{}_{q_i}g=\frac{f}{q_i}g,f\stackrel{}{}_{p_i}g=f\frac{g}{p_i},$$
(2.4)
and Eq. (2.3) is written as

$$\{f,g\}=\underset{i}{}f\left(\stackrel{}{}_{q_i}\stackrel{}{}_{p_i}\stackrel{}{}_{p_i}\stackrel{}{}_{q_i}\right)g.$$
(2.5)
From now on we shall use the Einstein convention of summing over repeated indices. When there is no danger of confusion, we sometimes suppress the indices altogether. In such cases the notation would strictly be correct only for one-particle systems; for many-particle systems the summed indices are left implicit. Eq. (2.3) can then be written as

$$\{f,g\}=f\left(\stackrel{}{}_q\stackrel{}{}_p\stackrel{}{}_p\stackrel{}{}_q\right)g.$$
(2.6)
We may abbreviate our notation further by using $`x`$ to represent points of the phase space manifold, $`x=(x_1,\mathrm{},x_{2n})`$, and introducing the Poisson tensor $`\alpha ^{ij}`$, where the indices $`i,j`$ run from $`1`$ to $`2n`$. In canonical coordinates $`\alpha ^{ij}`$ is represented by the matrix

$$\alpha =\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& I_n\\ I_n& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(2.7)
where $`I_n`$ is the $`n\times n`$ identity matrix. Then Eq. (2.3) becomes

$$\{f,g\}(x)=\alpha ^{ij}_if(x)_jg(x),$$
(2.8)
where $`_i=/x_i`$.

The time development of the system is given by Hamilton’s equations, which are easily expressed in terms of the Poisson brackets:

$$\dot{q}_i=\frac{H}{p_i}=\{q_i,H\},\dot{p}_i=\frac{H}{q_i}=\{p_i,H\}.$$
(2.9)
For a general observable

$$\dot{f}=\{f,H\}.$$
(2.10)
Because $`\alpha `$ transforms like a tensor with respect to coordinate transformations, Eq. (2.8) may also be written in noncanonical coordinates. In this case the components of $`\alpha `$ need not be constants, and may depend on the point of the manifold at which they are evaluated. But in Hamiltonian mechanics, $`\alpha `$ is still required to be invertible. A manifold equipped with a Poisson tensor of this kind is called a symplectic manifold. In modern treatments of mechanics, such as in Ref. , one uses a more general framework. The tensor $`\alpha `$ is no longer required to be invertible, but it nevertheless suffices to define Poisson brackets via Eq. (2.8), and these brackets are required to have the properties

1. $`\{f,g\}=\{g,f\}`$,
2. $`\{f,gh\}=\{f,g\}h+g\{f,h\}`$,
3. $`\{f,\{g,h\}\}+\{g,\{h,f\}\}+\{h,\{f,g\}\}=0`$.

Property (i) tells us that the Poisson bracket is antisymmetric, property (ii) is referred to as the Leibnitz rule, and property (iii) is called the Jacobi identity. The Poisson bracket used in Hamiltonian mechanics satisfies all these properties, but we now abstract these properties from the concrete prescription of Eq. (2.3), and define a Poisson manifold $`(M,\alpha )`$ as a smooth manifold $`M`$ equipped with a Poisson tensor $`\alpha `$, whose components are no longer necessarily constant, such that the bracket defined by Eq. (2.8) has the above properties. It turns out that such manifolds provide a better context for treating dynamical systems with symmetries. In fact, they are essential for treating gauge field theories, which govern the fundamental interactions of elementary particles.

## 3 Quantum Mechanics and Star Products

Up to now we have been considering classical mechanics. The essential difference between classical and quantum mechanics is Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation, which implies that in the latter, states can no longer be represented as points in phase space. The uncertainty is a consequence of the non-commutativity of the quantum mechanical observables. That is, the commutative classical algebra of observables must be replaced by a non-commutative quantum algebra of observables.

In the conventional approach to quantum mechanics this non-commutativity is implemented by representing the quantum mechanical observables by linear operators in Hilbert space. Physical quantities are then represented by eigenvalues of these operators, and physical states are related to the operator eigenfunctions. Although these entities are somehow related to their classical counterparts, to which they are supposed to reduce in an appropriate limit, the precise relationship has remained obscure, one hundred years after the beginnings of quantum mechanics. Textbooks refer to the correspondence principle, which guided the pioneers of the subject. Attempts to give this idea a precise formulation by postulating a specific relation between the classical Poisson brackets of observables and the commutators of the corresponding quantum mechanical operators, as undertaken for example by Dirac and von Neumann, encounter insurmountable difficulties, as pointed out by Groenewold in 1946 in an unjustly neglected paper.$`^{\text{References}}`$ In the same paper Groenewold also wrote down the first explicit representation of a star product (see Eq. (3.5)), without however realizing the potential of this concept for overcoming the difficulties that he wanted to resolve.

In the deformation quantization approach there is no such break when going from the classical system to the corresponding quantum system; we describe the quantum system by using the same entities that we use to describe the classical system. The observables of the system are described by the same functions on phase space as their classical counterparts. Uncertainty is realized by describing physical states as distributions on phase space that are not sharply localized, in contrast to the Dirac delta functions which occur in the classical case. When we evaluate an observable in some definite state according to the quantum analogue of Eq. (2.1) (see Eq. (4.5)), values of the observable in a whole region contribute to the number that we obtain, which is thus an average value of the observable in the given state. Non-commutativity is incorporated by introducing a non-commutative product for functions on phase space, so that we get a new non-commutative quantum algebra of observables.

The passage from the classical algebra of observables to the quantum algebra of observables is performed in a continuous fashion. When mathematicians investigate a particular structure, they try to modify it in various ways in order to see how these modifications affect it: which properties are preserved under certain modifications and which properties change. If the modification changes the structure in a continuous fashion, they speak of a deformation. All work on deformation quantization stems from Gerstenhaber’s seminal 1964 paper,$`^{\text{References}}`$ where he introduced the concept of a star product of smooth functions on a manifold.

For applications to quantum mechanics we consider smooth complex-valued functions on a Poisson manifold. A star product $`fg`$ of two such functions is a new smooth function, which, in general, is described by an infinite power series:

$$fg=fg+(i\mathrm{})C_1(f,g)+O(\mathrm{}^2)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(i\mathrm{})^nC_n(f,g).$$
(3.1)
The first term in the series is the pointwise product given in Eq. (2.2), and $`(i\mathrm{})`$ is the deformation parameter, which we think of as varying continuously. If $`\mathrm{}`$ is identified with Planck’s constant, then what varies is really the magnitude of the action of the dynamical system considered in units of $`\mathrm{}`$: the classical limit holds for systems with large action. In this limit, which we express here as $`\mathrm{}0`$, the star product reduces to the usual product. In general, the coefficients $`C_n`$ will be such that the new product is non-commutative, and we speak of the non-commutative algebra formed from the functions with this new multiplication law as a deformation of the original commutative algebra, which uses pointwise multiplication of the functions.

The expressions $`C_n(f,g)`$ denote functions made up of the derivatives of the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$. Examples will be given below, as in Eq. (3.4). It is obvious that without further restrictions of these coefficients, the star product is too arbitrary to be of any use. Gerstenhaber’s discovery was that the simple requirement that the new product be associative imposes such strong requirements on the coefficients $`C_n`$ that they are essentially unique in the most important cases (up to an equivalence relation which we shall discuss below). Formally, Gerstenhaber required that the coefficients satisfy the following properties:

1. $`\underset{j+k=n}{}C_j(C_k(f,g),h)=\underset{j+k=n}{}C_j(f,C_k(g,h))`$
2. $`C_0(f,g)=fg`$
3. $`C_1(f,g)C_1(g,f)=\{f,g\}`$.

Property (1) guarantees that the star product is associative: $`(fg)h=f(gh)`$. Property (2) means that in the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$ the star product $`fg`$ agrees with the pointwise product $`fg`$. Property (3) has at least two aspects. Mathematically, it anchors the new product to the given structure of the Poisson manifold. Physically, it provides the connection between the classical and quantum behavior of the dynamical system. Define a commutator by using the new product:

$$[f,g]_{}=fggf.$$
(3.2)
Property (3) may then be written as

$$\underset{\mathrm{}0}{lim}\frac{1}{i\mathrm{}}[f,g]_{}=\{f,g\}.$$
(3.3)
Equation (3.3) is the correct form of the correspondence principle. In general, the quantity on the left-hand side of Eq. (3.3) reduces to the Poisson bracket only in the classical limit. The source of the mathematical difficulties that previous attempts to formulate the correspondence principle encountered was related to trying to enforce equality between the Poisson bracket and the corresponding expression involving the quantum mechanical commutator. Equation (3.3) shows that such a relation in general only holds up to corrections of higher order in $`\mathrm{}`$.

For physical applications we usually require the star product to be Hermitean: $`\overline{fg}=\overline{g}\overline{f}`$, where $`\overline{f}`$ denotes the complex conjugate of $`f`$. The star products we are mainly concerned with in the following have this property.

For a given Poisson manifold it is not clear a priori if a star product for the smooth functions on the manifold actually exists, that is, whether it is at all possible to find coefficients $`C_n`$ that satisfy the above list of properties. Even if we find such coefficients, it it still not clear that the series they define through Eq. (3.1) yields a smooth function. Mathematicians have worked hard to answer these questions in the general case.$`^{\text{References}}`$ For flat Euclidian spaces, $`M=\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^{2n}`$, a specific star product has long been known. In this case the components of the Poisson tensor $`\alpha ^{ij}`$ can be taken to be constants. The coefficient $`C_1`$ can then be chosen antisymmetric, so that

$$C_1(f,g)=\frac{1}{2}\alpha ^{ij}(_if)(_jg)=\frac{1}{2}\{f,g\},$$
(3.4)
by property (3) above. The higher order coefficients may be obtained by exponentiation of $`C_1`$. This procedure yields the Moyal star product:$`^{\text{References},\text{References}}`$

$$f_Mg=fe^{(\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2})\alpha ^{ij}\stackrel{}{}_i\stackrel{}{}_j}g.$$
(3.5)
In canonical coordinates Eq. (3.5) becomes

$`(f_Mg)(q,p)`$ $`=`$ $`f(q,p)e^{\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}(\stackrel{}{}_q\stackrel{}{}_p\stackrel{}{}_p\stackrel{}{}_q)}g(q,p)`$ (3.6)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}}\right)^{m+n}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^m}{m!n!}}(_p^m_q^nf)(_p^n_q^mg).`$ (3.7)
We now come to the question of uniqueness of the star product on a given Poisson manifold. Two star products $``$ and $`^{}`$ are said to be $`c`$-equivalent if there exists an invertible transition operator

$$T=1+\mathrm{}T_1+\mathrm{}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mathrm{}^nT_n,$$
(3.8)
where the $`T_n`$ are differential operators, that satisfies

$$f^{}g=T^1((Tf)(Tg)).$$
(3.9)
It is known that for $`M=\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^{2n}`$ all admissible star products are $`c`$-equivalent to the Moyal product. An example of another star product in $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^{2n}`$ is the standard star product, defined by

$$f_Sg=fe^{i\mathrm{}\stackrel{}{}_q\stackrel{}{}_p}g.$$
(3.10)
The Moyal and standard star products are $`c`$-equivalent, that is,

$$T(f_Sg)=(Tf)_M(Tg),$$
(3.11)
with the transition operator

$$T=e^{\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}\stackrel{}{}_q\stackrel{}{}_p}.$$
(3.12)
Note that the antisymmetric part of the differential operator in the exponent of the standard product in Eq. (3.10) equals that of the exponent of the Moyal product in Eq. (3.6). This equality is a general feature of $`c`$-equivalent star products: it follows from condition (3) for the star product, which both forms have to obey. For more general manifolds the equivalence question has been studied in Ref. . The concept of $`c`$-equivalence is a mathematical one ($`c`$ stands for cohomology$`^{\text{References}}`$); it does not by itself imply any kind of physical equivalence, as we shall see below.

Before concluding this section we present two alternative expressions for the Moyal star product. A form that often is useful in calculations is given by the shift formula

$$(f_Mg)(q,p)=f(q+\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}\stackrel{}{}_p,p\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}\stackrel{}{}_q)g(q,p),$$
(3.13)
which can be obtained from the definition, Eq. (3.7), by repeated applications of the Taylor formula in the form given in Eq. (A.6) in the Appendix. Still another expression for the Moyal product, important both in theory and applications,$`^{\text{References},\text{References},\text{References}}`$ is a kind of Fourier representation:

$`(f_Mg)(q,p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑q_1𝑑q_2𝑑p_1𝑑p_2f(q_1,p_1)g(q_2,p_2)}`$ (3.14)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{2}{i\mathrm{}}}(p(q_1q_2)+q(p_2p_1)+(q_2p_1q_1p_2)].`$
A derivation of this expression is given in the Appendix. Equation (3.14) has an interesting geometrical interpretation.$`^{\text{References}}`$ Denote points in phase space by vectors, for example in two dimensions

$$𝐫=\left(\begin{array}{c}q\hfill \\ p\hfill \end{array}\right),𝐫_1=\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1\hfill \\ p_1\hfill \end{array}\right),𝐫_2=\left(\begin{array}{c}q_2\hfill \\ p_2\hfill \end{array}\right).$$
(3.15)
Now consider the triangle in phase space spanned by the vectors $`𝐫𝐫_1`$, and $`𝐫𝐫_2`$. Its area (symplectic volume) is

$`A(𝐫,𝐫_1,𝐫_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(𝐫𝐫_1)(𝐫𝐫_2)`$ (3.16)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[p(q_2q_1)+q(p_1p_2)+(q_1p_2q_2p_1)],`$
which is proportional to the exponent in Eq. (3.14). Hence we may rewrite Eq. (3.14) as

$$(fg)(𝐫)=𝑑𝐫_1𝑑𝐫_2f(𝐫_1)g(𝐫_2)\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{4i}{\mathrm{}}A(𝐫,𝐫_1,𝐫_2)\right].$$
(3.17)
We shall meet this equation again at the end of this article.

## 4 Deformation Quantization

The properties of the star product are well adapted for describing the noncommutative quantum algebra of observables. We have already discussed the associativity and the incorporation of the classical and semi-classical limits. Note that the characteristic non-locality feature of quantum mechanics is also explicit. In the expression for the Moyal product given in Eq. (3.7) the star product of the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$ at the point $`x`$ involves not only the values of the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$ at this point, but also all higher derivatives of these functions at $`x`$. But for a smooth function, knowledge of all the derivatives at a given point is equivalent to knowledge of the function on the entire space. In the integral expression of Eq. (3.14) we also see that knowledge of the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$ on the whole phase space is necessary to determine the value of the star product at the point $`x=(q,p)`$.

The $`c`$-equivalent star products correspond to different quantization schemes. Having chosen a quantization scheme, the quantities of interest for the quantum system may be calculated. It turns out that different quantization schemes lead to different spectra for the observables. The choice of a specific quantization scheme can only be motivated by further physical requirements. In the simple example we discuss below, the classical system is completely specified by its Hamilton function. In more general cases one may have to decide what constitutes a sufficiently large set of good observables for a complete specification of the system.$`^{\text{References}}`$

A state is characterized by its energy $`E`$, the set of all possible values for the energy is called the spectrum of the system. The states are described by distributions on phase space called projectors. The state corresponding to the energy $`E`$ is denoted by $`\pi _E(q,p)`$. These distributions are normalized:

$$\frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}\pi _E(q,p)𝑑q𝑑p=1,$$
(4.1)
and idempotent:

$$(\pi _E\pi _E^{})(q,p)=\delta _{E,E^{}}\pi _E(q,p).$$
(4.2)
The fact that the Hamilton function takes the value $`E`$ when the system is in the state corresponding to this energy is expressed by the equation

$$(H\pi _E)(q,p)=E\pi _E(q,p).$$
(4.3)
Equation (4.3) corresponds to the time-independent Schrödinger equation, and is sometimes called the $``$-genvalue equation. The spectral decomposition of the Hamilton function is given by

$$H(q,p)=\underset{E}{}E\pi _E(q,p),$$
(4.4)
where the summation sign may indicate an integration if the spectrum is continuous. The quantum mechanical version of Eq. (2.1) is

$$E=\frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}(H\pi _E)(q,p)𝑑q𝑑p=\frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}H(q,p)\pi _E(q,p)𝑑q𝑑p,$$
(4.5)
where the last expression may be obtained by using Eq. (3.14) for the star product.

The time-evolution function for a time-independent Hamilton function is denoted by $`\mathrm{Exp}(Ht)`$, and the fact that the Hamilton function is the generator of the time-evolution of the system is expressed by

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{d}{dt}\mathrm{Exp}(Ht)=H\mathrm{Exp}(Ht).$$
(4.6)
This equation corresponds to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. It is solved by the star exponential:

$$\mathrm{Exp}(Ht)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{n!}\left(\frac{it}{\mathrm{}}\right)^n(H)^n,$$
(4.7)
where $`(H)^n=\underset{n\mathrm{times}}{\underset{}{HH\mathrm{}H}}`$. Because each state of definite energy $`E`$ has a time-evolution $`e^{iEt/\mathrm{}}`$, we expect that the complete time-evolution function may be written in the form:

$$\mathrm{Exp}(Ht)=\underset{E}{}\pi _Ee^{iEt/\mathrm{}}.$$
(4.8)
This expression is called the Fourier-Dirichlet expansion for the time-evolution function.

Questions concerning the existence and uniqueness of the star exponential as a $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ function and the nature of the spectrum and the projectors again require careful mathematical analysis. The problem of finding general conditions on the Hamilton function $`H`$ which ensure a reasonable physical spectrum is analogous to the problem of showing in the conventional approach that the symmetric operator $`\widehat{H}`$ is self-adjoint and finding its spectral projections. Some of these questions have been answered by Hansen.$`^{\text{References}}`$ Others are the subject of ongoing research. But let us not forget that quantum mechanics is a physical theory. Physicists are usually interested in specific systems, and one can often determine empirically if some quantity exists just by calculating it! This will turn out to be the case in the following example.

## 5 The Simple Harmonic Oscillator

The simple one-dimensional harmonic oscillator is characterized by the classical Hamilton function

$$H(q,p)=\frac{p^2}{2m}+\frac{m\omega ^2}{2}q^2.$$
(5.1)
In terms of the holomorphic variables

$$a=\sqrt{\frac{m\omega }{2}}\left(q+i\frac{p}{m\omega }\right),\overline{a}=\sqrt{\frac{m\omega }{2}}\left(qi\frac{p}{m\omega }\right)$$
(5.2)
the Hamilton function becomes

$$H=\omega a\overline{a}.$$
(5.3)
Our aim is to calculate the time-evolution function. We first choose a quantization scheme characterized by the normal star product

$$f_Ng=fe^{\mathrm{}\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}}g.$$
(5.4)
We then have

$$\overline{a}_Na=a\overline{a},a_N\overline{a}=a\overline{a}+\mathrm{},$$
(5.5)
so that

$$[a,\overline{a}]__N=\mathrm{}.$$
(5.6)
Equation (4.6) for this case is

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{d}{dt}\mathrm{Exp}_N(Ht)=(H+\mathrm{}\omega \overline{a}_{\overline{a}})\mathrm{Exp}_N(Ht),$$
(5.7)
with the solution

$$\mathrm{Exp}_N(Ht)=e^{a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}\mathrm{exp}\left(e^{i\omega t}a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}\right).$$
(5.8)
By expanding the last exponential in Eq. (5.8), we obtain the Fourier-Dirichlet expansion:

$$\mathrm{Exp}_N(Ht)=e^{a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{\mathrm{}^nn!}\overline{a}^na^ne^{in\omega t}.$$
(5.9)
If we compare coefficients in Eqs. (4.8) and (5.9), we find

$`\pi _0^{(N)}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}},`$ (5.10)
$`\pi _n^{(N)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\pi _0\overline{a}^na^n={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\overline{a}^n_N\pi _0^{(N)}_Na^n,`$ (5.11)
$`E_n`$ $`=`$ $`n\mathrm{}\omega .`$ (5.12)
Note that the spectrum obtained in Eq. (5.12) does not include the zero-point energy. The projector onto the ground state $`\pi _0^{(N)}`$ satisfies

$$a_N\pi _0^{(N)}=0.$$
(5.13)
The spectral decomposition of the Hamilton function, Eq. (4.4), is in this case

$$H=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}n\mathrm{}\omega \left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}^nn!}e^{a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}\overline{a}^na^n\right)=\omega a\overline{a}.$$
(5.14)
The Hamilton function is of course a classical quantity; the factor $`\mathrm{}`$ in the spectrum comes from the deformation parameter in the star product.

We now consider the Moyal quantization scheme. If we write Eq. (3.6) in terms of holomorphic coordinates, we obtain

$$f_Mg=fe^{\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\stackrel{}{}_a)}g.$$
(5.15)
Here we have

$$a_M\overline{a}=a\overline{a}+\frac{\mathrm{}}{2},\overline{a}_Ma=a\overline{a}\frac{\mathrm{}}{2},$$
(5.16)
and again

$$[a,\overline{a}]__M=\mathrm{}.$$
(5.17)
The value of the commutator of two phase space variables is fixed by property (3) of the star product, and cannot change when one goes to a $`c`$-equivalent star product. The Moyal star product is $`c`$-equivalent to the normal star product with the transition operator

$$T=e^{\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}}.$$
(5.18)
We can use this operator to transform the normal product version of the $``$-genvalue equation, Eq. (4.3), into the corresponding Moyal product version according to Eq. (3.9). The result is

$$H_M\pi _n^{(M)}=\omega \left(\overline{a}_Ma+\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\right)_M\pi _n^{(M)}=\mathrm{}\omega \left(n+\frac{1}{2}\right)\pi _n^{(M)},$$
(5.19)
with

$`\pi _0^{(M)}`$ $`=`$ $`T\pi _0^{(N)}=2e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}},`$ (5.20)
$`\pi _n^{(M)}`$ $`=`$ $`T\pi _n^{(N)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\overline{a}^n_M\pi _0^{(M)}_Ma^n.`$ (5.21)
The projector onto the ground state $`\pi _0^{(M)}`$ satisfies

$$a_M\pi _0^{(M)}=0.$$
(5.22)
We now have for the spectrum

$$E_n=\left(n+\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{}\omega ,$$
(5.23)
which is the textbook result. We conclude that for this problem the Moyal quantization scheme is the correct one.

The use of the Moyal product in Eq. (4.6) for the star exponential of the harmonic oscillator leads to the following differential equation:

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{d}{dt}\mathrm{Exp}_M(Ht)=\left(H\frac{(\mathrm{}\omega )^2}{4}_H\frac{(\mathrm{}\omega )^2}{4}H_H^2\right)\mathrm{Exp}_M(Ht).$$
(5.24)
The solution is

$$\mathrm{Exp}_M(Ht)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{cos}\frac{\omega t}{2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{2H}{i\mathrm{}\omega }\right)\mathrm{tan}\frac{\omega t}{2}\right].$$
(5.25)
This expression can be brought into the form of the Fourier-Dirichlet expansion of Eq. (4.8) by using the generating function for the Laguerre polynomials:$`^{\text{References}}`$

$$\frac{1}{1+s}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{zs}{1+s}\right]=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}s^n(1)^nL_n(z),$$
(5.26)
with $`s=e^{i\omega t}`$. The projectors then become

$$\pi _n^{(M)}=2(1)^ne^{2H/\mathrm{}\omega }L_n\left(\frac{4H}{\mathrm{}\omega }\right),$$
(5.27)
which is equivalent to the expression already found in Eq. (5.21), as shown in the Appendix.

## 6 Conventional Quantization

One usually finds the observables characterizing some quantum mechanical system by starting from the corresponding classical system, and then, either by guessing or by using some more or less systematic method, finding the corresponding representations of the classical quantities in the quantum system. The guiding principle is the correspondence principle: the quantum mechanical relations are supposed to reduce somehow to the classical relations in an appropriate limit. Early attempts to systematize this procedure involved finding an assignment rule $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ that associates to each phase space function $`f`$ a linear operator in Hilbert space $`\widehat{f}=\mathrm{\Theta }(f)`$ in such a way that in the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$, the quantum mechanical equations of motion go over to the classical equations. Such an assignment cannot be unique, because even though an operator that is a function of the basic operators $`\widehat{Q}`$ and $`\widehat{P}`$ reduces to a unique phase space function in the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$, there are many ways to assign an operator to a given phase space function, due to the different orderings of the operators $`\widehat{Q}`$ and $`\widehat{P}`$ that all reduce to the original phase space function. Different ordering procedures correspond to different quantization schemes. It turns out that there is no quantization scheme for systems with observables that depend on the coordinates or the momenta to a higher power than quadratic which leads to a correspondence between the quantum mechanical and the classical equations of motion, and which simultaneously strictly maintains the Dirac-von Neumann requirement that $`(1/i\mathrm{})[\widehat{f},\widehat{g}]\{f,g\}`$.$`^{\text{References}}`$ Only within the framework of deformation quantization does the correspondence principle acquire a precise meaning.

A general scheme for associating phase space functions and Hilbert space operators, which includes all of the usual orderings, is given as follows.$`^{\text{References}}`$ The operator $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\lambda (f)`$ corresponding to a given phase space function $`f`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_\lambda (f)=\stackrel{~}{f}(\xi ,\eta )e^{i(\xi \widehat{Q}+\eta \widehat{P})}e^{\lambda (\xi ,\eta )}𝑑\xi 𝑑\eta ,$$
(6.1)
where $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ is the Fourier transform of $`f`$, and $`(\widehat{Q},\widehat{P})`$ are the Schrödinger operators that correspond to the phase-space variables $`(q,p)`$; $`\lambda (\xi ,\eta )`$ is a quadratic form:

$$\lambda (\xi ,\eta )=\frac{\mathrm{}}{4}(\alpha \eta ^2+\beta \xi ^2+2i\gamma \xi \eta ).$$
(6.2)
Different choices for the constants $`(\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma )`$ yield different operator ordering schemes. The choice $`\alpha =\beta =0`$ is convenient when using $`(q,p)`$ coordinates; $`\gamma =1`$ corresponds to antistandard ordering

$$qp\widehat{P}\widehat{Q},$$
(6.3)
$`\gamma =1`$ to standard ordering

$$qp\widehat{Q}\widehat{P},$$
(6.4)
and $`\gamma =0`$ to the totally symmetric Weyl ordering

$$qp\frac{1}{2}(\widehat{Q}\widehat{P}+\widehat{P}\widehat{Q}).$$
(6.5)
In holomorphic coordinates it is convenient to take $`\gamma =0`$, and $`\beta =\alpha `$. Then $`\alpha =1`$ corresponds to antinormal ordering

$$a\overline{a}\widehat{a}\widehat{a}^{},$$
(6.6)
$`\alpha =1`$ to normal ordering

$$a\overline{a}\widehat{a}^{}\widehat{a},$$
(6.7)
and $`\alpha =0`$ to Weyl ordering

$$a\overline{a}\frac{1}{2}(\widehat{a}\widehat{a}^{}+\widehat{a}^{}\widehat{a}).$$
(6.8)
The inverse procedure of finding the phase space function that corresponds to a given operator $`\widehat{f}`$ is, for the special case of Weyl ordering, given by

$$f(q,p)=q+\frac{1}{2}\xi |\widehat{f}|q\frac{1}{2}\xi e^{i\xi p/\mathrm{}}𝑑\xi .$$
(6.9)
When using holonomic coordinates it is convenient to work with the coherent states$`^{\text{References}}`$

$$\widehat{a}|a=a|a,\overline{a}|\widehat{a}^{}=\overline{a}|\overline{a}.$$
(6.10)
These states are related to the energy eigenstates of the harmonic oscillator

$$|n=\frac{1}{\sqrt{n!}}\widehat{a}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{n}|0$$
(6.11)
by

$$|a=e^{\frac{1}{2}a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{a^n}{\sqrt{n!}}|n,\overline{a}|=e^{\frac{1}{2}a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\overline{a}^n}{\sqrt{n!}}n|.$$
(6.12)
In normal ordering we obtain the phase space function $`f(a,\overline{a})`$ corresponding to the operator $`\widehat{f}`$ by just taking the matrix element between coherent states:

$$f(a,\overline{a})=\overline{a}|f(\widehat{a},\widehat{a}^{})|a.$$
(6.13)
## 7 Quantization, Star Products and Path Integrals

The relation between operator algebras and star products is given by

$$\mathrm{\Theta }(f)\mathrm{\Theta }(g)=\mathrm{\Theta }(fg),$$
(7.1)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is a linear assignment of the kind discussed in Sec. 6. Different assignments, which correspond to different operator orderings, correspond to $`c`$-equivalent star products. This important relation, which was already known to Groenewold,$`^{\text{References}}`$ will be proved in the Appendix. It tells us that the quantum mechanical algebra of observables is a representation of the star product algebra. Because in the algebraic approach to quantum theory all the information concerning the quantum system may be extracted from the algebra of observables,$`^{\text{References}}`$ specifying the star product completely determines the quantum system. In particular, if the star product is Hermitean, the operator algebra is a $`C^{}`$-algebra. In recent work$`^{\text{References}}`$ methods have been developed for constructing explicit Hilbert space representations of the deformed star product algebra: here the algebra of observables is the primary object and the representing Hilbert spaces are subordinate. In this sense deformation quantization is not just an alternative approach to quantum theory: it may be considered as a specification of the basic quantum structure.

In the conventional approach the time-development of the system is characterized by the appropriate matrix element of the time-development operator, namely the Feynman kernel:

$$K(q_2,t;q_1,0)=q_2|e^{i\widehat{H}t/\mathrm{}}|q_1,$$
(7.2)
where $`\widehat{H}`$ is the Hamilton operator. By substituting a complete set of energy eigenstates, we obtain an expression resembling the Fourier-Dirichlet expansion of Sec. 4:

$$K(q_2,t;q_1,0)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}q_2|nn|q_1e^{iE_nt/\mathrm{}}.$$
(7.3)
For the harmonic oscillator we may insert the known eigenfunctions and eigenvalues to obtain the following expression for $`K(q_2,t;q_1,0)`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2^nn!}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{m\omega }{\pi \mathrm{}}}}e^{\frac{m\omega }{\mathrm{}}(q_1^2+q_2^2)}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}e^{i(n+\frac{1}{2})\omega t}H_n\left(\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{m\omega }{\mathrm{}}}}q_1\right)H_n\left(\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{m\omega }{\mathrm{}}}}q_2\right)`$
$`=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{m\omega }{2\pi i\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\omega t}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{im\omega }{2\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\omega t}}\left((q_1^2+q_2^2)\mathrm{cos}\omega t2q_1q_2\right)\right],`$ (7.4)
where we have used the following expansion formula involving the Hermite polynomials$`^{\text{References}}`$

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{1s^2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{2xyss^2(x^2+y^2)}{1s^2}\right]=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{s^n}{2^nn!}H_n(x)H_n(y).$$
(7.5)
In order to relate this to the phase space functions for the harmonic oscillator discussed in Sec. 4, we apply the Fourier transform of Eq. (6.9) to both sides of Eq. (7.4). We use the following relation between the Hermite and Laguerre polynomials:

$$𝑑x\left[H_n(xa)H_n(x+a)e^{x^2}\right]e^{2ibx}=2^n\sqrt{\pi }n!e^{b^2}L_n(2(a^2+b^2)),$$
(7.6)
and find

$$2(1)^n\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{i(n+\frac{1}{2})\omega t}e^{\frac{2H}{\mathrm{}\omega }}L_n\left(\frac{4H}{\mathrm{}\omega }\right)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{cos}\frac{\omega t}{2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{2H}{i\mathrm{}\omega }\mathrm{tan}\frac{\omega t}{2}\right].$$
(7.7)
The right-hand side of Eq. (7.7) is the expression for the Moyal star exponential for the harmonic oscillator as given in Eq. (5.25). According to the Fourier-Dirichlet expansion formula (4.8) the left-hand side gives the expressions (5.27) for the projectors. For holomorphic coordinates the calculation is even easier:

$$\pi _n^{(N)}(a,\overline{a})=\frac{1}{\mathrm{}^n}\overline{a}|nn|a=\frac{1}{\mathrm{}^nn!}(\overline{a}a)^ne^{\overline{a}a/\mathrm{}},$$
(7.8)
in agreement with Eq. (5.11) for the normal star product projectors.

We see that the star exponential $`\mathrm{Exp}(Ht)`$ and the projectors $`\pi _n`$ are the phase space representations of the time-evolution operator $`e^{i\widehat{H}t/\mathrm{}}`$ and the projection operators $`\widehat{\rho }_n=|nn|`$, respectively. Weyl-ordering corresponds to the use of the Moyal star product for quantization and normal ordering to the use of the normal star product. In the density matrix formalism we say that the projection operator is that of a pure state, which is characterized by the property of being idempotent: $`\widehat{\rho }_n^2=\widehat{\rho }_n`$ (compare Eq. (4.2)). The integral of the projector over the momentum gives the probability distribution in position space:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \pi _n^{(M)}(q,p)𝑑p}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle q+\xi /2|nn|q\xi /2e^{i\xi p/\mathrm{}}𝑑\xi 𝑑p}`$ (7.9)
$`=`$ $`q|nn|q=|\psi _n(q)|^2,`$
and the integral over the position gives the probability distribution in momentum space:

$$\frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}\pi _n^{(M)}(q,p)𝑑q=p|nn|p=|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n(p)|^2.$$
(7.10)
The normalization is

$$\frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}\pi _n^{(M)}(q,p)𝑑q𝑑p=1,$$
(7.11)
which is the same as Eq. (4.1). Applying these relations to the ground state projector of the harmonic oscillator, Eq. (5.20) shows that this is a minimum-uncertainty state. In the classical limit $`\mathrm{}0`$, it goes to a Dirac $`\delta `$-function. The expectation value of the Hamiltonian operator is

$$\frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}(H_M\pi _n^{(M)})(q,p)𝑑q𝑑p=q|\widehat{H}\widehat{\rho }_n|q𝑑q=\mathrm{Tr}(\widehat{H}\widehat{\rho }_n),$$
(7.12)
which should be compared to Eq. (4.5).

The relation (7.1) agrees nicely with the interpretation of the time evolution of the quantum mechanical system suggested by Feynman. In this view the time evolution for a finite time interval is the result of successive steps corresponding to time intervals $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=t/N`$. In the operator formalism the finite time evolution operator is thus the product of the short-time evolution operators

$$q_{i+1},t_{i+1}|q_i,t_i=q_{i+1}|e^{i\widehat{H}\mathrm{\Delta }t/\mathrm{}}|q_i.$$
(7.13)
By Eq. (7.1) this procedure corresponds to forming the star product of the associated phase space functions $`\mathrm{Exp}(H\mathrm{\Delta }t)`$. In this way the star exponential which results for the finite time evolution is the Fourier transform of the Feynman kernel in the sense of Eq. (6.9). Feynman’s procedure yields the path integral expression for the kernel

$$K(q_2,t;q_1,0)=Dq(t)e^{iS\left[q\right]/\mathrm{}},$$
(7.14)
where $`S\left[q\right]`$ is the classical action functional and the notation $`Dq(t)`$ indicates an integration over all paths with the fixed endpoints $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$. For the harmonic oscillator the semi-classical approximation is exact, and hence the path integral can be evaluated by inserting the classical solution into the action functional. The result of this calculation agrees with the right-hand side of Eq. (7.4).$`^{\text{References}}`$ Hence, there is also a direct relationship between the path integral and the star exponential. This relationship has been verified directly in the general case by Sharan$`^{\text{References}}`$ for the coordinate representation, and by Dito$`^{\text{References}}`$ for the holomorphic representation.

## 8 Quantum Field Theory

A real scalar field is given in terms of the coefficients $`a(𝐤),\overline{a}(𝐤)`$ by

$$\varphi (x)=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}\sqrt{2\omega _𝐤}}\left[a(𝐤)e^{ikx}+\overline{a}(𝐤)e^{ikx}\right],$$
(8.1)
where $`\mathrm{}\omega _𝐤=\sqrt{\mathrm{}^2k^2+m^2}`$ is the energy of a single quantum of the field. The corresponding quantum field operator is

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(x)=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}\sqrt{2\omega _𝐤}}\left[\widehat{a}(𝐤)e^{ikx}+\widehat{a}^{}(𝐤)e^{ikx}\right],$$
(8.2)
where $`\widehat{a}(𝐤),\widehat{a}^{}(𝐤)`$ are the annihilation and creation operators for a quantum of the field with momentum $`\mathrm{}𝐤`$. The Hamiltonian is

$$H=d^3k\mathrm{}\omega _𝐤\widehat{a}^{}(𝐤)\widehat{a}(𝐤).$$
(8.3)
$`N(𝐤)=\widehat{a}^{}(𝐤)\widehat{a}(𝐤)`$ is interpreted as the number operator, and Eq. (8.3) is then just the generalization of Eq. (5.12), the expression for the energy of the harmonic oscillator in the normal ordering scheme, for an infinite number of degrees of freedom. Had we chosen the Weyl ordering scheme, we would have been lead, by the generalization of Eq. (5.23), to an infinite vacuum energy. Hence requiring the vacuum energy to vanish implies the choice of the normal ordering scheme in free field theory. In the framework of deformation quantization this requirement leads to the choice of the normal star product for treating free scalar fields, as pointed out by Dito:$`^{\text{References}}`$ only for this choice is the star product well-defined.

Currently, in realistic physical field theories involving interacting relativistic fields we are limited to perturbative calculations. The objects of interest are products of the fields. The analog of the Moyal product of Eq. (3.5) for systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom is

$`\varphi (x_1)\varphi (x_2)\mathrm{}\varphi (x_n)`$
$`=\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i<j}{}}{\displaystyle d^4xd^4y\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi _i(x)}\mathrm{\Delta }(xy)\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi _j(y)}}\right]\varphi _1(x_1),\mathrm{}\varphi _n(x_n)|_{\varphi _i=\varphi },`$ (8.4)
where the expressions $`\delta /\delta \varphi (x)`$ indicate functional derivatives. Here we have used the antisymmetric Schwinger function

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(xy)=[\mathrm{\Phi }(x),\mathrm{\Phi }(y)].$$
(8.5)
The Schwinger function is uniquely determined by relativistic invariance and causality from the equal-time commutator

$$[\mathrm{\Phi }(x),\dot{\mathrm{\Phi }}(y)]|_{x^0=y^0}=i\mathrm{}\delta ^{(3)}(𝐱𝐲),$$
(8.6)
which is the characterization of the canonical structure in the field theoretic framework.

The Moyal product is, however, not the suitable star product to use in this context. In relativistic quantum field theory it is necessary to incorporate causality in the form advocated by Feynman: positive frequencies propagate forward in time, whereas negative frequencies propagate backwards in time. This property is achieved by using the Feynman propagator:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_F(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }^+(x)& \mathrm{for}x^0>0\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{\Delta }^{}(x)& \mathrm{for}x^0<0,\hfill \end{array}$$
(8.7)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+(x)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}(x)`$ are the propagators for the positive and negative frequency components of the field, respectively. In operator language

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_F(xy)=𝒯(\mathrm{\Phi }(x)\mathrm{\Phi }(y))𝒩(\mathrm{\Phi }(x)\mathrm{\Phi }(y)),$$
(8.8)
where $`𝒯`$ indicates the time-ordered product of the fields and $`𝒩`$ the normal-ordered product. Because the second term in Eq. (8.8) is a normal ordered product with vanishing vacuum expectation value, the Feynman propagator may be simply characterized as the vacuum expectation value of the time-ordered product of the fields. The antisymmetric part of the positive frequency propagator is the Schwinger function:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^+(x)\mathrm{\Delta }^+(x)=\mathrm{\Delta }^+(x)+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}(x)=\mathrm{\Delta }(x).$$
(8.9)
The fact that going over to a $`c`$-equivalent product leaves the antisymmetric part of the differential operator in the exponent of Eq. (8.4) invariant suggests that the use of the positive frequency propagator instead of the Schwinger function merely involves the passage to a $`c`$-equivalent star product. This is indeed easy to verify. The time-ordered product of the operators is obtained by replacing the Schwinger function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(xy)`$ in Eq. (8.4) by the c-equivalent positive frequency propagator $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+(xy)`$, restricting the time integration to $`x^0>y^0`$, as in Eq. (8.7), and symmetrizing the integral in the variables $`x`$ and $`y`$, which brings in the jnegative frequency propagator $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}(xy)`$ for times $`x^0<y^0`$. Then Eq. (8.4) becomes Wick’s theorem, which is the basic tool of relativistic perturbation theory. In operator language$`^{\text{References}}`$

$$𝒯(\mathrm{\Phi }(x_1),\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Phi }(x_n))=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}d^4xd^4y\frac{\delta }{\delta \mathrm{\Phi }(x)}\mathrm{\Delta }_F(xy)\frac{\delta }{\delta \mathrm{\Phi }(y)}\right]𝒩(\mathrm{\Phi }(x_1),\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Phi }(x_n)).$$
(8.10)
The relation between relativistic perturbation theory and deformation quantization has recently been discussed by Dütsch and Fredenhagen.$`^{\text{References}}`$

Another interesting relation between deformation quantization and quantum field theory has been uncovered by studies of the Poisson-Sigma model.$`^{\text{References}}`$ This model involves a set of scalar fields $`X^i`$ which map a two-dimensional manifold $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$ onto a Poisson space $`M`$, as well as generalized gauge fields $`A_i`$, which are one-forms on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$ mapping to one-forms on $`M`$. The action is given by

$$S_{PS}=_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}(A_idX^i+\alpha ^{ij}A_iA_j),$$
(8.11)
where $`\alpha ^{ij}`$ is the Poisson structure of $`M`$. The remarkable formula found by Cattaneo and Felder$`^{\text{References}}`$ is

$$(fg)(x)=DXDAf(X(1))g(X(2))e^{iS_{PS}/\mathrm{}},$$
(8.12)
where $`f,g`$ are functions on $`M`$, $``$ is Kontsevich’s star product,$`^{\text{References}}`$ and the functional integration is over all fields $`X`$ that satisfy the boundary condition $`X(\mathrm{})=x`$. Here $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$ is taken to be a disc in $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2`$; 1, 2, and $`\mathrm{}`$ are three points on its circumference. By expanding the functional integral in Eq. (8.12) according to the usual rules of perturbation theory, one finds that the coefficients of the powers of $`\mathrm{}`$ reproduce the graphs and weights that characterize Kontsevich’s star product. For the case in which the Poisson tensor is invertible, we can perform the Gaussian integration in Eq. (8.12) involving the fields $`A_i`$. The result is

$$(fg)(x)=DXf(X(1))g(X(2))\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij}𝑑X^i𝑑X^j\right].$$
(8.13)
Equation (8.13) is formally similar to Eq. (3.14) for the Moyal product, to which the Kontsevich product reduces in the symplectic case. Here $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij}=(\alpha ^{ij})^1`$ is the symplectic 2-form, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij}𝑑X^i𝑑X^j`$ is the symplectic volume of the manifold $`M`$. To make this relationship exact one must integrate out the gauge degrees of freedom in the functional integral in Eq. (8.13). Since the Poisson-sigma model represents a topological field theory there would remain only a finite-dimensional integral, which would coincide with the integral in Eq. (3.17). For details of this procedure see Ref. (37).

Another important application of deformation theory in the field theoretic context involves the correct treatment of unphysical degrees of freedom in gauge theories. Currently it is believed that deformation theory is the best method for dealing with these systems.$`^{\text{References}}`$ There are also attempts to use the methods of deformation quantization to treat problems in string theory$`^{\text{References}}`$ and quantum gravity.$`^{\text{References}}`$

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Dipl. Cand. Stefan Jansen from Dortmund, who helped us with some of the calculations which appear in this paper. P. H. acknowledges a Stipendium for Graduate Studies from the Land Nordrhein-Westfalen. A. C. H. wishes to thank the organizers of the Third International Conference on Geometry, Integrability and Quantization, held in Varna, Bulgaria from June 14–23, 2001, for the opportunity to present a preliminary version of this material.

## Appendix A Appendix: Calculational Techniques

Questions related to deformation quantization have attracted the interest of many prominent mathematicians, and there is an extensive mathematical literature on the subject. We nevertheless wish to emphasize that physics students learning quantum mechanics should become proficient in performing calculations in the same style that they employ in their other subjects, for example in classical electrodynamics. That is, they should fearlessly interchange the order of summations and integrations, naively manipulate delta functions, etc. Physicists have usually achieved their results by quick and ready calculations, which were only later justified by their mathematical colleagues. In any case, the ultimate test for physical theories is the comparison to experiment.

To encourage students on this path, we present in this Appendix a few typical calculations of this kind which can be used to motivate some of the relations in the main text. After working through these examples, students should be able to cope with the other results discussed.

We shall first look at the important Eq. (7.1) which relates star products and operator products. Although the relation holds for any specific ordering and its corresponding star product, we shall perform the calculation using Weyl ordering. The product of the two operators $`\mathrm{\Theta }(f)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(g)`$, which represent the phase space functions $`f`$ and $`g`$, respectively, is

$`\mathrm{\Theta }(f)\mathrm{\Theta }(g)`$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑\xi _1𝑑\eta _1𝑑\xi _2𝑑\eta _2\stackrel{~}{f}(\xi _1,\eta _1)\stackrel{~}{g}(\xi _2,\eta _2)}`$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}[i(\xi _1\widehat{Q}+\eta _1\widehat{P})]\mathrm{exp}[i(\xi _2\widehat{Q}+\eta _2\widehat{P})]`$
$`={\displaystyle 𝑑\xi _1𝑑\eta _1𝑑\xi _2𝑑\eta _2\stackrel{~}{f}(\xi _1,\eta _1)\stackrel{~}{g}(\xi _2,\eta _2)}`$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left[i\left((\xi _1+\xi _2)\widehat{Q}+(\eta _1+\eta _2)\widehat{P}\right)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}}(\xi _1\eta _2\eta _1\xi _2)\right],`$ (A.1)
where we have used the truncated Campbell-Baker-Hausdorff formula:

$$e^Ae^B=e^{(A+B)}e^{\frac{1}{2}[A,B]}.$$
(A.2)
We expand the last exponential in Eq. (A.1), make the substitution of variables $`\xi =\xi _1+\xi _2`$, $`\eta =\eta _1+\eta _2`$, and obtain

$$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Theta }(f)\mathrm{\Theta }(g)=𝑑\xi 𝑑\eta e^{i(\xi \widehat{Q}+\eta \widehat{P})}\hfill \\ \hfill \times d\xi _1d\eta _1\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^m}{m!n!}\left(\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}\right)^{m+n}\xi _1^m\eta _1^n\stackrel{~}{f}(\xi _1,\eta _1)(\xi \xi _1)^n(\eta \eta _1)^m\stackrel{~}{g}(\xi \xi _1,\eta \eta _1).\end{array}$$
(A.3)
The expression on the second line of Eq. (A.3) is by the Fourier convolution theorem just the Fourier transform of the expression for the Moyal product in Eq. (3.7). Hence

$$\mathrm{\Theta }(f)\mathrm{\Theta }(g)=𝑑\xi 𝑑\eta \stackrel{~}{(f_Mg)}e^{i(\xi \widehat{Q}+\eta \widehat{P})}=\mathrm{\Theta }(f_Mg).$$
(A.4)
To get the representation for the Moyal product of Eq. (3.14), we use again the Fourier convolution theorem and write the Fourier transforms of the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$ explicitly:

$`f_Mg`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau 𝑑\sigma 𝑑\xi 𝑑\eta 𝑑q_1𝑑p_1𝑑q_2𝑑p_2e^{i\sigma q}e^{i\tau p}}`$
$`\times e^{\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}(\eta (\sigma \xi )\xi (\tau \eta ))}e^{i\xi q_1i\eta p_1}f(q_1,p_1)e^{i(\sigma \xi )q_2i(\tau \eta )p_2}g(q_2,p_2)`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau 𝑑\sigma 𝑑\xi 𝑑\eta 𝑑q_1𝑑p_1𝑑q_2𝑑p_2f(q_1,p_1)g(q_2,p_2)}`$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left[i\sigma (q+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\eta q_2)+i\tau (p{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\xi p_2)i\xi q_1i\eta p_1+i\xi q_2+i\eta p_2\right]`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\xi 𝑑\eta 𝑑q_1𝑑p_1𝑑q_2𝑑p_2f(q_1,p_1)g(q_2,p_2)}`$
$`\times \delta \left(q{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\eta +q_2\right)\delta \left(p+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\xi +p_2\right)\mathrm{exp}[i\xi q_1i\eta p_1+i\xi q_2+i\eta p_2].`$ (A.5)
Now rescale the delta functions according to $`\delta (q\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\eta +q_2)=(\frac{2}{\mathrm{}})\delta (\eta +\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}q\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}q_2)`$, and similarly for the second delta function, and perform the $`\xi `$ and $`\eta `$ integrations. The result is Eq. (3.14).

The result in Eq. (5.27) expressing the projectors of the harmonic oscillator in the Moyal scheme in terms of the Laguerre polynomials may be obtained directly by calculating the expressions $`\pi _n^{(M)}=T\pi _n^{(N)}`$ given in Eq. (5.21). These expressions can be written as

$`T\pi _n^{(N)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}_a_{\overline{a}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\overline{a}^na^ne^{a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\overline{a}^na^n\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\left(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\stackrel{}{}_a+\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\right)\right)e^{a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}.`$
In principle, one has to include the commutator in the Campbell-Baker-Hausdorff formula when factorizing exponential terms, but in this case the commutator vanishes. Hence, we can factor out the last term in the exponent and apply Eq. (5.20) for $`\pi _0^{(N)}`$ to get

$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\overline{a}^na^n\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\left(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\stackrel{}{}_a\right)\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\overline{a}^na^n\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\left(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\right)\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\left(\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\stackrel{}{}_a\right)\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\overline{a}^na^n\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\left(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\right)\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\overline{a}\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}.`$
Because the commutator $`[\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}),\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\overline{a}]`$ vanishes, we can exchange the order of the two exponentials in the last equation and then carry out the operations indicated by the first exponential:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\overline{a}^na^n\mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\overline{a}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\left(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\right)\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}\left(\overline{a}+\overline{a}\right)^na^n\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\left(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}+\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\right)\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}2^n\overline{a}^na^n\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\left(\stackrel{}{}_a\stackrel{}{}_{\overline{a}}\right)\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{}{}_aa\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}.`$
Here we have used the Taylor formula in the form

$$f(x+a)=e^{a_x}f(x).$$
(A.6)
The first exponential can now be expanded:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}^nn!}}2^n\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k!}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}\right)^k\left(_a^ka^n\right)\left(_{\overline{a}}^k\overline{a}^n\right)\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{}{}_aa\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`2\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^k}{k!}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}}}\right)^{nk}{\displaystyle \frac{n!}{(nk)!(nk)!}}a^{nk}\overline{a}^{nk}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{}{}_aa\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`(1)^n2L_n\left(2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{}{}_aa\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`(1)^n2L_n\left(4a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}\right)e^{2a\overline{a}/\mathrm{}},`$
where we used the definition of the Laguerre polynomials:$`^{\text{References}}`$

$$L_n(x)=\underset{m=0}{\overset{n}{}}(1)^m\frac{n!}{(nm)!m!m!}x^m.$$
(A.7)
Using similar methods students should now be able to do the following problems.

1. Show that Eq. (3.12) gives the transition operator from the standard star product to the Moyal product, that is, that Eq. (3.11) is satisfied.
2. Repeat the calculation above for the projectors $`\pi _n^{(M)}`$ to obtain the form of the projector $`\pi _0^{(M)}`$ given in Eq. (5.20).
3. Verify that the projectors $`\pi _0^{(N)}`$ and $`\pi _0^{(M)}`$ satisfy the idempotence property of Eq. (4.2). You may find the Fourier form of the Moyal product, Eq. (3.14), convenient for this purpose.
4. Show that the prescriptions for passing from a phase-space function to its corresponding Weyl-ordered operator and back, given in Eqs. (6.1) and (6.9), are really inverse to each other.
5. Establish the relation between the Laguerre and Hermite polynomials given in Eq. (7.6).
6. Perform the path integral indicated in Eq. (7.14) for the harmonic oscillator in order to obtain the expression (7.4) for the Feynman kernel.
7. Perform the Gaussian integration which reduces Eq. (8.12) to Eq. (8.13) when the Poisson tensor is invertible.


text:
# CERN-TH/2002-193 Cosmological Sign of Neutrino CP Violation

## Abstract

It is shown how, in a class of models, the sign of the baryon number of the universe can be related to CP violation in neutrino oscillation experiments.

One of the most profound ideas is that baryon number asymmetry arises in the early universe because of processes which violate CP symmetry and that terrestrial experiments on CP violation could therefore inform us of the details of such cosmological baryogenesis.

The early discussions of baryogenesis focused on the violation of baryon number and its possible relation to proton decay. In the light of present evidence for neutrino masses and oscillations it is more fruitful to associate the baryon number of the universe with violation of lepton number. In the present Letter we shall show how, in one class of models, the sign of the baryon number of the universe correlates with the results of CP violation in neutrino oscillation experiments which will be performed in the forseeable future.

Present data on atmospheric and solar neutrinos suggest that there are respective squared mass differences $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a3\times 10^3eV^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_s5\times 10^5eV^2`$. The corresponding mixing angles $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _3`$ satisfy $`tan^2\theta _11`$ and $`0.6sin^22\theta _30.96`$ with $`sin^2\theta _3=0.8`$ as the best fit. The third mixing angle is much smaller than the other two, since the data require $`sin^22\theta _20.1`$.

A first requirement is that our model accommodate these experimental facts at low energy.

In the minimal standard model, neutrinos are massless. The most economical addition to the standard model which accommodates both neutrino masses and allows the violation of lepton number to underly the cosmological baryon asymmetry is two right-handed neutrinos $`N_{1,2}`$. This gives rise to a more constrained see-saw mechanism than envisioned in .

These lead to new terms in the lagrangian:

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(N_1,N_2)\left(\begin{array}{cc}M_1& 0\\ 0& M_2\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}N_1\\ N_2\end{array}\right)+`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`(N_1,N_2)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}a& a^{^{}}& 0\\ 0& b& b^{^{}}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}l_1\\ l_2\\ l_3\end{array}\right)H+h.c.`$ (11)
where we shall denote the rectangular Dirac mass matrix by $`D_{ij}`$. We have assumed a texture for $`D_{ij}`$ in which the upper right and lower left entries vanish. The remaining parameters in our model are both necessary and sufficient to account for the data. The texture zeroes of Eq(11) can be achieved with supersymmetry by imposing a complicated global symmetry.

For the light neutrinos, the see-saw mechanism leads to the mass matrix

$`\widehat{L}`$ $`=`$ $`D^TM^1D`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{a^2}{M_1}& \frac{aa^{^{}}}{M_1}& 0\\ \frac{aa^{^{}}}{M_1}& \frac{(a^{^{}})^2}{M_1}+\frac{b^2}{M_2}& \frac{bb^{^{}}}{M_2}\\ 0& \frac{bb^{^{}}}{M_2}& \frac{(b^{^{}})^2}{M_2}\end{array}\right)`$ (16)
We take a basis where $`a,b,b^{^{}}`$ are real and where $`a^{^{}}`$ is complex $`a^{^{}}|a^{^{}}|e^{i\delta }`$. To check consistency with low-energy phenomenology we temporarily take the specific values (these will be loosened later) $`b^{^{}}=b`$ and $`a^{^{}}=\sqrt{2}a`$ and all parameters real. In that case:

$`\widehat{L}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{a^2}{M_1}& \frac{\sqrt{2}a^2}{M_1}& 0\\ \frac{\sqrt{2}a^2}{M_1}& \frac{2a^2}{M_1}+\frac{b^2}{M_2}& \frac{b^2}{M_2}\\ 0& \frac{b^2}{M_2}& \frac{b^^2}{M_2}\end{array}\right)`$ (20)
We now diagonalize to the mass basis by writing:

$$=\frac{1}{2}\nu ^T\widehat{L}\nu =\frac{1}{2}\nu ^{}_{}{}^{}TU^T\widehat{L}U\nu ^{^{}}$$
(21)
where

$`U`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1/\sqrt{2}& 1/\sqrt{2}& 0\\ 1/2& 1/2& 1/\sqrt{2}\\ 1/2& 1/2& 1/\sqrt{2}\end{array}\right)\times `$ (25)
$`\times `$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& cos\theta & sin\theta \\ 0& sin\theta & cos\theta \end{array}\right)`$ (29)
We deduce that the mass eigenvalues and $`\theta `$ are given by

$$m(\nu _3^{^{}})2b^2/M_2;m(\nu _2^{^{}})2a^2/M_1;m(\nu _1^{^{}})=0$$
(30)
and

$$\theta m(\nu _2^{^{}})/(\sqrt{2}m(\nu _3^{^{}}))$$
(31)
in which it was assumed that $`a^2/M_1b^2/M_2`$.

By examining the relation between the three mass eigenstates and the corresponding flavor eigenstates we find that for the unitary matrix relevant to neutrino oscillations that

$$U_{e3}sin\theta /\sqrt{2}m(\nu _2)/(2m(\nu _3))$$
(32)
Thus the assumptions $`a^{^{}}\sqrt{2}a`$, $`b^{^{}}=b`$ adequately fit the experimental data, but $`a^{^{}}`$ and $`b^{^{}}`$ could be varied around $`\sqrt{2}a`$ and $`b`$ respectively to achieve better fits.

But we may conclude that

$`2b^2/M_2`$ $``$ $`0.05eV=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_a}`$ (33)
$`2a^2/M_1`$ $``$ $`7\times 10^3eV=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_s}`$ (34)
It follows from these values, taking into account that the $`L`$ asymmetry for $`N_2`$ decay is suppressed due to the washing-out effect, also by a factor $`(hh^{})^2/(hh^{})_{22}`$, that the mass $`M_2`$ for $`N_2`$ must be larger than $`10^{12}`$ GeV if $`N_2`$ decay is responsible for the present baryon asymmetry.

This would mean that the reheating temperature is higher than $`10^{12}`$ GeV which would lead to a serious problem with cosmological production of gravitinos of mass O(TeV) in the supersymmetric standard model.

Therefore we consider it more likely that $`N_1`$ decay produces the baryon asymmetry, since the mass $`M_1`$ of $`N_1`$ can be $`10^{10}`$ GeV.

Making this choice enables us to compute from the sign (known from cosmological B) of the high-energy CP violating parameter ($`\xi _H`$) appearing in leptogenesis the sign of the CP violation parameter which will be measured in low-energy $`\nu `$ oscillations ($`\xi _L`$).

We find the baryon number $`B`$ of the universe produced by $`N_1`$ decay proportional to

$`B`$ $``$ $`\xi _H=(ImDD^{})_{12}^2=Im(a^{^{}}b)^2`$ (35)
$`=`$ $`+Y^2a^2b^2sin2\delta `$ (36)
in which $`B`$ is positive by observation of the universe. Here we have loosened our assumption about $`a^{^{}}`$ to $`a^{^{}}=Yae^{i\delta }`$.

At low energy the CP violation in neutrino oscillations is governed by the quantity

$$\xi _L=Im(h_{12}h_{23}h_{31})$$
(37)
where $`h=\widehat{L}\widehat{L}^{}`$.

Using Eq.(16) we find:

$`h_{12}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{a^3a^{^{}}}{M_1^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{a|a^{^{}}|^2a^{{}_{}{}^{}}}{M_1^2}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{aa^{^{}}b^2}{M_1M_2}}`$ (38)
$`h_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{bb^{^{}}a^{}_{}{}^{}2}{M_1M_2}}\right)+\left({\displaystyle \frac{b^3b^{^{}}}{M_2^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{bb^{}_{}{}^{}3}{M_2^2}}\right)`$ (39)
$`h_{31}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{aa^{{}_{}{}^{}}bb^{^{}}}{M_1M_2}}\right)`$ (40)
from which it follows that

$$\xi _L=\frac{a^6b^6}{M_1^3M_2^3}sin2\delta [Y^2(2+Y^2)]$$
(42)
Here we have taken $`b=b^{^{}}`$ because the mixing for the atmospheric neutrinos is almost maximal.

Neutrinoless double beta decay $`(\beta \beta )_{0\nu }`$ is predicted at a rate corresponding to $`\widehat{L}_{ee}3\times 10^3eV`$.

The comparison between Eq.(36) and Eq.(42) now gives a unique relation between the signs of $`\xi _L`$ and $`\xi _H`$.

As a check of this assertion we consider the equally viable alternative model

$$D=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}a& 0& a^{^{}}\\ 0& b& b^{^{}}\end{array}\right)$$
(43)
in Eq.(11) where $`\xi _L`$ reverses sign but the signs of $`\xi _H`$ and $`\xi _L`$ are still uniquely correlated once the $`\widehat{L}`$ textures arising from the $`D`$ textures of Eq.(11) and Eq.(43) are distinguished by low-energy phenomenology. Note that such models have five parameters including a phase and that cases B1 and B2 in  are unphysical limits of (11) and (43) respectively.

This fulfils in such a class of models the idea of  with only the small change that baryon number violation is replaced by lepton number violation.

The work of P.H.F. was supported in part by the Department of Energy under Grant Number DE-FG02-97ER-410236; that of S.L.G. by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number NSF-PHY-0099529; and that of T.Y. by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S)14102004.


text:
# Unscreened universality class for superconductors with columnar disorder

(, Physical Review B in press)

## Abstract

The phase transition in a model for vortex lines in high temperature superconductors with columnar defects, i.e., linearly correlated quenched random disorder, is studied with finite size scaling and Monte Carlo simulations. Previous studies of critical properties have mainly focused on the limit of strongly screened vortex line interactions. Here the opposite limit of weak screening is considered. The simulation results provide evidence for a new universality class, with new critical exponents that differ from the case of strong screening of the vortex interaction. In particular, scaling is anisotropic and characterized by a nontrivial value of the anisotropy exponent $`\zeta =\nu _{}/\nu _{}`$. The exponents we find, $`\zeta =1.25\pm 0.1,\nu _{}=1.0\pm 0.1,z=1.95\pm 0.1`$, are similar to certain experimental results for YBCO.

Columnar defects have proven very effective at pinning vortex lines in high temperature superconductors (SC), resulting in significant increases in the critical magnetic fields and currents Civale . The columnar defects are often produced as damage tracks by irradiating the sample with high-energy heavy ions. Such correlated disorder strongly affects the phase transition from the SC to normal state and there is an ongoing theoretical and experimental effort to investigate the phase diagram and properties of the transition Nelson ; Wallin-Girvin ; Lidmar-Wallin ; Lee ; Blatter ; Zlatko ; Phuoc ; Phuoc2 ; Klein ; Soret ; Smith ; Smith2 ; Jiang ; Reed ; grigera ; Kwok . Below a critical temperature the vortices freeze into a glassy SC state, known as a Bose glass, which replaces the Abrikosov vortex lattice of the clean system. Upon heating the system undergoes a continuous phase transition to a resistive vortex liquid state. The transition is characterized by critical exponents, that have been measured in a number of experiments. The critical exponents are universal, i.e., they are common for all systems in the same universality class, and depend only on general features like the range of the interaction and distribution of the disorder. In spite of the fact that the screening length $`\lambda `$ in high temperature SC is quite large, most theoretical work on columnar defects has concentrated on strongly screened systems with short range interactionsdirtybosons ; Wallin-Girvin ; Lidmar-Wallin . In general, long range interactions often change the universality class of a transition, compared to short range interactions. It is therefore natural to study the universality class with long range interactions. In this paper we present a systematic study of the SC transition in systems with columnar disorder, an applied magnetic field, and weak screening, and compare the results with experiments.

The superconducting phase transition with columnar disorder is also interesting from the perspective of quantum phase transitions in systems with disorder Nelson ; Wallin-Girvin ; dirtybosons ; Fisher-Grinstein-Girvin ; Herbut . In fact, statistical mechanics of vortex lines in three-dimensions is closely analogous to world-lines of quantum bosons in (2+1) dimensions, where the vortex phase transition corresponds to the zero-temperature boson localization by substrate disorder. The quantum bosons have static disorder in imaginary time, corresponding to columnar disorder for the vortex lines. The quantum dynamical exponent $`\zeta `$ (relating the diverging time and length scales at the transition) translates into an anisotropic scaling behavior for the vortex line problem, where correlations along the columnar defects diverge with a different rate than the perpendicular ones when approaching the Bose glass transition.

The vortex phase transition with columnar disorder has previously been studied for the case of strongly screened vortex interactions Wallin-Girvin ; Lidmar-Wallin . There the correlation length exponent $`\nu `$, anisotropy exponent $`\zeta `$, and dynamic exponent $`z`$, take the values $`\nu 1,\zeta =2,z4.6`$ Lidmar-Wallin . The result $`\zeta =2`$ follows if the compressibility is nonsingular through the transition, and is hence believed to be exact. The effect of long range interactions in systems with correlated disorder has been considered in the context of the superconductor-insulator quantum phase transitions of disordered ultrathin films Fisher-Grinstein-Girvin ; dirtybosons ; Herbut . For long range planar $`1/r`$-interactions, that act only between world line segments in the same $`xy`$-plane, and thus is completely local in the $`z`$-direction, the system is incompressible, with $`\nu 1`$ and $`\zeta =1`$ dirtybosons . Early simulations Lee ; Cha-Girvin  of more realistic models (from the vortex point of view) show evidence for a non-trivial value of the anisotropy exponent close to $`1`$. Some experiments Jiang ; Reed  have been interpreted as belonging to an incompressible universality class with $`\zeta 1`$.

The main task in this paper is to examine the superconducting phase transition with columnar disorder in the limit where the screening length is very long, such that any effects of screening of the vortex interaction can be effectively neglected. In other words we set $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$, and thus examine a no-screening fixed point for the superconducting phase transition. The screening length in the HTS is typically $`\lambda 1000`$ Å so for most of the phase diagram the assumption of no screening is reasonable. We stress that one possibility is that the true asymptotic critical behavior is effectively described by a fixed point with a screened interaction. However, even if this is the case, we expect that the scaling properties upon approaching the transition is controlled by the unscreened model in a large region of the parameter space, before an eventual crossover to the true critical regime. In comparison, this occurs in clean systems without an applied field FFH . Our model also assumes no fluctuations in the amplitude of the SC order parameter (London approximation), which is valid in a large region of the phase diagram well below $`H_{c2}`$ Blatter . The interaction is taken to be a fully isotropic, three-dimensional (3D) long range interaction between vortex lines, that should apply for fairly isotropic systems. The form of the interaction makes our model different from most of the previously studied Boson-like models, with a planar interaction between the vortex lines. We consider only the case when both the magnetic field and all the columnar defects are aligned in the $`z`$-direction. The anisotropy due to the field and the columnar disorder allows for the possibility of an anisotropic correlation volume, where the correlation length in different directions can diverge with different exponents. In addition we consider dynamical aspects of the problem, which do not have a counterpart in the quantum boson problem, and compute the dynamical exponent $`z`$. This assumes that MC dynamics for vortex lines can be equated with real dynamics, which should apply close to the transition where the dynamics is slow and over-damped dynamics . Our values for $`\nu ,\zeta ,z`$ differ from those of the previously studied models, which suggests that the present model belongs to a new, distinct universality class.

Our starting point is the Ginzburg-Landau theory for the superconducting complex scalar order parameter field, $`\psi (𝐫)=|\psi |\mathrm{exp}i\theta (𝐫)`$,

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^d𝐫\left[\right|({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi i}{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}}𝐀)\psi |^2+\alpha |\psi |^2`$ (1)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta |\psi |^4+{\displaystyle \frac{𝐁^2}{8\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{𝐁𝐇}{4\pi }}]`$
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is the magnetic flux quantum, $`𝐁=\times 𝐀`$ is the magnetic flux density and $`𝐀`$ is the magnetic vector potential, and $`𝐇`$ is the applied magnetic field. By fairly standard manipulations helicity  this model can be transformed into a model involving only the vortex degrees of freedom. In the London approximation, i.e., neglecting fluctuations in the amplitude of $`\psi (𝐫)`$, a discretized form of the vortex Hamiltonian reads

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\underset{𝐫,𝐫^{}}{}V(𝐫𝐫^{})𝐪(𝐫)𝐪(𝐫^{})+\frac{1}{2}\underset{𝐫}{}D(𝐫_{})q_z(𝐫)^2,$$
(2)
where the sums over $`𝐫`$ run through all sites on a simple cubic lattice with $`\mathrm{\Omega }=L\times L\times L_z`$ sites, and periodic boundary conditions in all three directions. The vortex line variables are specified by an integer vector field $`𝐪(𝐫)`$, such that the $`\mu =x,y,z`$ component is the vorticity on the link from the site $`𝐫`$ to $`𝐫+𝐞_\mu `$. The partition function is $`Z=\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{exp}(H/T)`$, where $`T`$ is the temperature, and $`\mathrm{Tr}`$ denotes the sum over all possible integers $`q_\mu `$, subject to the constraint that the discrete divergence $`𝐪=0`$ on all sites, i.e., the vortex lines have no free ends. The vortex-vortex interaction is given by

$$V(𝐫)=\frac{K}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\underset{𝐤}{}\frac{e^{i𝐤𝐫}}{_\mu (22\mathrm{cos}k_\mu )+\lambda ^2},$$
(3)
where we choose units such that $`K=1`$, and consider the limit of no screening, corresponding to $`\lambda =\mathrm{}`$. Randomness is included in the vortex model (2) in the second term in the form of a random core energy, which corresponds roughly to a random $`\alpha (𝐫)`$ in the GL model. In real systems, each columnar defect gives approximately the same pinning energy, while they are located at random positions. On the lattice it is more practical to instead insert one column on each link of the lattice in the $`z`$-direction, but with a random pinning energy. We use a uniform distribution of random pinning energies in the interval $`0D(𝐫_{})0.8`$, where each $`D(𝐫_{})`$ is constant in the $`z`$-direction to model correlated disorder. We model the net applied magnetic field as a fixed number of $`L^2/4`$ vortex lines penetrating the system in the $`z`$-direction, corresponding to quarter filling, i.e. one vortex on every fourth link in the $`z`$-direction. To test for universality of our critical exponents, we also studied the case of $`L^2/2`$ vortex lines penetrating the system in $`z`$ direction and disorder strength $`0D(𝐫_{})1.0`$.

The MC trial moves consist of attempts to insert vortex line loops of random orientation on randomly selected plaquettes of the lattice. One MC sweep consists of one attempt on average to insert a loop on every plaquette, which we define as one MC time step, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=1`$. The attempts are accepted with probability $`1/(1+\mathrm{exp}\mathrm{\Delta }E/T)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ is the energy change for inserting the loop. The initial vortex configuration is taken to be a regular lattice of straight lines. To approach equilibrium we discard about $`210^4`$ MC sweeps ($`6.510^4`$ for the resistivity) before any measurements are taken, followed by equally many sweeps for collecting data. To verify that the warm-up time is long enough, we tried to vary the warm-up time between 5000 and $`10^5`$ sweeps for a single temperature, close to $`T_c`$, which gave no significant differences in the final results. The results were averaged over up to 1000-2000 samples of the disorder potential. For the simulation of static quantities we use an exchange MC algorithm to speed up convergence exchange . Note that the exchange method can not be used for dynamic quantities, since it involves large nonlocal moves in phase space. In the following we denote thermal averages by $`\mathrm{}`$ and disorder averages by $`[\mathrm{}]`$.

In the simulation, the helicity modulus and the RMS current is obtained by the following procedure helicity . An extra term $`H_Q=\frac{K}{2\mathrm{\Omega }}𝐐^2`$ is included in the Hamiltonian, where $`Q_\mu `$ is the total projected area of vortex loops added during the simulation helicity . The helicity modulus in the direction $`\mu `$ ($`\mu =x,z`$) is then given by

$$Y_\mu =1\frac{K}{\mathrm{\Omega }T}[Q_\mu ^2Q_\mu ^\alpha Q_\mu ^\beta ],$$
(4)
and the RMS current density is given by $`J_\mu =\frac{K}{\mathrm{\Omega }}[Q_\mu ^\alpha Q_\mu ^\beta ]^{1/2}`$, where we use two different replicas in our simulations, denoted $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, to avoid any bias in the expectation values. We also calculate the linear resistivity $`\rho `$, in which case $`H_Q`$ is not included in $`H`$, by evaluating the Kubo formula Kubo

$$R_\mu =\frac{1}{2T}\underset{t=t_0}{\overset{t_0}{}}[V_\mu (t)V_\mu (0)],$$
(5)
where $`t`$ is MC time and $`t_0\mathrm{}`$, and the voltage is $`V_\mu \mathrm{\Delta }Q_\mu `$. $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q_\mu `$ is the net change in the projected vortex loop area during a sweep. In practice the summation time $`t_0`$ is chosen large enough that the resistivity is independent of $`t_0`$.

Next we consider the anisotropic finite size scaling relations used to extract critical properties from the MC data Wallin-Girvin ; Lidmar-Wallin . At the transition temperature $`T_c`$ the correlation length in the $`xy`$-planes, $`\xi `$, in the $`z`$-direction, $`\xi _z`$, and the correlation time, $`\tau `$, are assumed to diverge as $`\xi |TT_c|^\nu ,\xi _z\xi ^\zeta ,\tau \xi ^z`$. The anisotropic finite size scaling ansatz Lidmar-Wallin  for the helicity modulus in $`z`$ direction is

$$Y_z=L^{1d+\zeta }f_z(L^{1/\nu }(TT_c),L_z/L^\zeta ),$$
(6)
where $`d=3`$ is the spatial dimensionality, and $`f_z`$ is a scaling function (all scaling functions will from now on be suppressed). Similarly, for the current density in the $`x`$-direction, we have

$$J_xL^{2d\zeta }.$$
(7)
The linear resistivity is given by $`\rho =E/J`$, where $`E`$ is the electric field and $`J`$ the current density, and scales as

$$\rho _xL^{d3+\zeta z},\rho _zL^{d1\zeta z}.$$
(8)
In the simulations we consider a whole range of system sizes $`L_z`$ for each $`L`$, since the anisotropy exponent $`\zeta `$ that enters the aspect ratio, $`L_zL^\zeta `$ is a priori unknown. For non-integral values of $`L_z`$, we simulate two systems with nearest integer $`L_z`$ and interpolate the results using linear interpolation. For the resistivity, both linear and logarithmic interpolations were tested and agree within error bars. Once we locate the correct value for $`\zeta `$, the argument $`L_z/L^\zeta `$ in the scaling functions can be made constant by setting $`L_zL^\zeta `$.

We determine the critical temperature $`T_c`$ for the phase transition and the critical exponents from MC data for the helicity modulus in Eq. (4), by fits to the finite size scaling form in Eq. (6). Figure 1 shows our estimate of $`T_c`$ using the scaling form of the helicity modulus in the $`z`$-direction. By selecting the value for $`\zeta `$ that gives the best common intersection point, we obtain $`\zeta =1.25\pm 0.1`$ and $`T_c=0.0765`$, where the error bar on $`\zeta `$ is estimated by the interval outside which scaling gets considerably worse. The RMS current density in $`x`$-direction, $`J_x`$, can also be used to calculate $`T_c`$. The result agrees, within the error bars, with the result from $`Y_z`$.

Right at $`T_c`$ it is possible to obtain a data collapse when plotting various quantities as a function of $`L_z/L^\zeta `$. Figure 2 show such plots for $`(L^2/L_z)Y_z`$ and $`(L_zL)J_{\mathrm{rms}}`$. Adjusting $`T_c`$ and $`\zeta `$ until the best collapse is obtained gives identical estimates, within the error bars, as the previous method. This clearly demonstrates that the scaling is anisotropic.

The inset of Fig. 1 shows a determination of the correlation length exponent $`\nu `$ using finite size scaling, for data from two different fillings, $`f=1/2`$ and $`f=1/4`$, and two different disorder strengths. We use fits to Eq. (6) to obtain a data collapse for different system sizes ($`L=48`$ for $`f=1/2`$, $`L=812`$ for $`f=1/4`$) over an entire temperature interval around $`T_c`$. Both $`T_c`$ and $`\nu `$ were free parameters in the fit resulting in $`\nu =1.0\pm 0.1`$, $`T_c=0.0765`$ for $`f=1/4`$, and $`T_c=0.0747`$ for $`f=1/2`$. The data collapse to a common universal scaling function indicates that the results are indeed universal.

Next we study the critical MC dynamics of the model. We calculate the resistivity $`\rho `$ in $`x`$ and $`z`$-directions from the Kubo formula in Eq. (5) at $`T=T_c=0.0765`$. This gives us both a useful consistency test of the value $`\zeta 1.25`$ found above, and a value for the dynamic exponent $`z`$. To verify that the summation time in Eq. (5) is long enough, we plot $`\rho `$ vs. $`t_0`$ in the inset of Fig. 3. We also note that the correlation time is at most $`10^3`$ sweeps, which is much less than the equilibration times used in the simulations. Figure 3 shows the resistivity in the $`x`$ and $`z`$-directions as a function of system size. We calculate $`\zeta `$ and $`z`$ by making a power law fit of the data points in the figure to Eq. (8). This gives $`\zeta =1.3\pm 0.1,z=1.95\pm 0.1`$, where the error bars are estimated by the bootstrap method numrec , in good agreement with $`\zeta 1.25`$ found above.

Finally we will compare our findings with some other results. The results for critical exponents, $`\zeta =1.25\pm 0.1,\nu =1.0\pm 0.1,z=1.95\pm 0.1`$, imply that the linear resistivity scales as $`\rho |TT_c|^s`$ with $`s_x=\nu (z+3d\zeta )0.7,s_z=\nu (z+1d+\zeta )1.3`$. For the nonlinear current-voltage characteristic at $`T=T_c`$, we have $`EJ^p`$ with $`p_x=(1+z)/(d+\zeta 2)1.3,p_z=(\zeta +z)/(d1)1.6`$, for $`d=3`$. Table LABEL:experiments shows a comparison between simulation results and results from a selection of transport experiments where the critical exponents studied in this paper have been measured. In the table we observe that several experiments agree very well with the previously known exponents for screened vortex interactions. Notably, however, the table also shows that the results from two of the experiments on YBCO agree quite well with our exponents for unscreened 3D interactions, which suggests that they may effectively belong to the new universality class considered here. Naively one may expect that the present results describe the transition when the screening length is much longer than the vortex spacing. For e.g. YBCO, where $`\lambda 1400`$ Å, this corresponds to $`B0.1`$ T. The precise location of the crossover between weak and strong screening is unclear, as well as the precise role of anisotropy and other parameters, and would be interesting to investigate further both experimentally and theoretically.

In summary, we obtained scaling properties and numerical results for critical exponents that apply for the superconducting transition in systems with columnar defects in the limit of a long screening length, and compared with experiments. The critical exponents for this universality class differ considerably from the strongly screened case Wallin-Girvin ; Lidmar-Wallin , and also from the case of planar $`1/r`$-interactions dirtybosons . In particular, the new anisotropy exponent differs from the value $`\zeta =1`$ assigned to the universality class of incompressible dirty bosons with planar long range interactions Fisher-Grinstein-Girvin ; dirtybosons ; Herbut . Further work is motivated in order to further clarify the origin of the scaling properties obtained in different experiments, and when the different models apply. Experimental studies to look for a crossover between unscreened and screened scaling behavior would also be interesting.

We acknowledge illuminating discussions with George Crabtree and Stephen Teitel. This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council, STINT, PDC, and the Göran Gustafsson foundation.