Quantum Group

This book presents a thorough and, indeed, the first systematic investigation of the interplay between the locality condition in configuration space and the spectrum condition in momentum space. The work is based on techniques from algebraic quantum theory and from complex analysis of several variables. The reader will first be made familiar with a set of basic axioms heuristically explained from first principles of quantum physics and will find the results presented in a systematic way. The book addresses researchers as well as graduate students.

Photonics is the discipline of electrons and photons working in tandem to create new physics, new devices and new applications. This textbook employs a pedagogical approach that facilitates access to the fundamentals of quantum photonics. Beginning with a review of the quantum properties of photons and electrons, the book then introduces the concept of their non-locality at the quantum level.

The present work is the first volume of a substantially enlarged version of the mimeographed notes of a course of lectures first given by me in the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, India, during 1964-65. When it was suggested that these lectures be developed into a book, I readily agreed and took the opportunity to extend the scope of the material covered. No background in physics is in principle necessary for understand­ ing the essential ideas in this work. However, a high degree of mathematical maturity is certainly indispensable.

In this monograph, we shall present a new mathematical formulation of quantum theory, clarify a number of discrepancies within the prior formulation of quantum theory, give new applications to experiments in physics, and extend the realm of application of quantum theory well beyond physics.

This self-contained essay collection is published to commemorate half a century of Bell’s theorem. Like its much acclaimed predecessor “Quantum [Un]Speakables: From Bell to Quantum Information” (published 2002), it comprises essays by many of the worlds leading quantum physicists and philosophers. These revisit the foundations of quantum theory as well as elucidating the remarkable progress in quantum technologies achieved in the last couple of decades. Fundamental concepts such as entanglement, nonlocality and contextuality are described in an accessible manner and, alongside lively descriptions of the various theoretical and experimental approaches, the book also delivers interesting philosophical insights. The collection as a whole will serve as a broad introduction for students and newcomers as well as delighting the scientifically literate general reader.

The first fifteen chapters of these lectures (omitting four to six chapters each year) cover a one term course taken by a mixed group of senior undergraduate and junior graduate students specializing either in mathematics or physics. Typically, the mathematics students have some background in advanced anal­ ysis, while the physics students have had introductory quantum mechanics. To satisfy such a disparate audience, we decided to select material which is interesting from the viewpoint of modern theoretical physics, and which illustrates an interplay of ideas from various fields of mathematics such as operator theory, probability, differential equations, and differential geometry.

In the past decade, there has been a sudden and vigorous development in a number of research areas in mathematics and mathematical physics, such as theory of operator algebras, knot theory, theory of manifolds, infinite dimensional Lie algebras and quantum groups (as a new topics), etc. on the side of mathematics, quantum field theory and statistical mechanics on the side of mathematical physics. The new development is characterized by very strong relations and interactions between different research areas which were hitherto considered as remotely related. Focussing on these new developments in mathematical physics and theory of operator algebras, the International Oji Seminar on Quantum Analysis was held at the Kansai Seminar House, Kyoto, JAPAN during June 25-29, 1992 by a generous sponsorship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Fujihara Foundation of Science, as a workshop of relatively small number of (about 50) invited participants. This was followed by an open Symposium at RIMS, described below by its organizer, A. Kishimoto.