PIMS Symplectic Geometry Seminar: Geometric quantization of integrable systems

The theory of geometric quantization is one way of producing a "quantum system" from a "classical system," and has been studied a great deal over the past several decades. It also has surprising ties to representation theory. However, despite this, there still does not exist a satisfactory theory of quantization for systems with singularities.

Geometric quantization requires the choice of a polarization; when using a real polarization to quantize a regular enough manifold, a result of Sniatycki says that the quantization can be found by counting certain objects, called Bohr-Sommerfeld fibres. However, there are many types of systems to which this result does not apply. One such type is the class of completely integrable systems, which are examples coming from mechanics that have many nice properties, but which are nontheless too singular for Sniatycki's theorem to apply.

In this talk we will explore one approach to the quantization of integrable systems, and show a Sniatycki-type relationship to Bohr-Sommerfeld fibres. However, some surprising features appear, including infinite-dimensional contributions and strong dependence on the polarization.

I will give at least a brief explanation of both geometric quantization and integrable systems, and hope to make the talk accessible to a general differential geometric audience.

This is joint work with Eva Miranda.